
Class 
Book 



/ 



THE HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE 



\ 



THE HUGUENOTS IN 
FRANCE 



after fte Hebocatton of t&e <&bitt of faults 

WITH A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY OF 
THE VAUDOIS 



By SAMUEL SMILES 

7THOR OF " THE HUGUENOTS : THEIR SETTLEMENTS, CHURCHES, AND INDUSTRIES 
IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND," " SELF-HELP," "CHARACTER," ETC. 



c 



" Plus a me frapper on s'amuse, 
Tant plus de marteaux on y use." 

Theodore de Beze. 

"They maintained their faith in the noble way of persecution, and 
served God in the fire, whereas we honour him in the sunshine." 

Sir Thomas Browne. 



W. ISBISTER & CO. 
56, LUDGATE HILL, LONDON 
1874 

0. 



LONDON : 
PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., 
CITY ROAD. 



PEEFACE. 



SIX years since, I published a book entitled The 
Huguenots : their Settlements, Churches, and In- 
dustries, in England and Ireland. Its object was 
to give an account of the causes which led to the 
large migrations of foreign Protestants from Flanders 
and France into England, and to describe their effects 
upon English industry as well as English history. 

It was necessary to give a brief resume of the his- 
tory of the Reformation in France down to the dis- 
persion of the Huguenots, and the suppression of the 
Protestant religion by Louis XIV. under the terms of 
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 

Under that Act, the profession of Protestantism was 
proclaimed to be illegal, and subject to the severest 
penalties. Hence, many of the French Protestants 
who refused to be " converted/' and had the means 
of emigrating, were under the necessity of leaving 
France and endeavouring to find personal freedom and 
religious liberty elsewhere. 

The refugees found protection in various countries. 
The principal portion of the emigrants from Languedoc 



VI 



PREFACE. 



and the south-eastern provinces of France crossed the 
frontier into Switzerland, and settled there, or after- 
wards proceeded into the states of Prussia, Holland, 
and Denmark, as well as into England and Ireland. 
The chief number of emigrants from the northern 
and western seaboard provinces of France, emigrated 
directly into England, Ireland, America, and the 
Cape of Good Hope. In my previous work, I en- 
deavoured to give as accurate a description as was 
u possible of the emigrants who settled in England 
and Ireland, to which the American editor of the 
work (the Hon. Gt. P. Disosway) has added an ac- 
count of those who settled in the United States of 
America. 

But besides the Huguenots who contrived to escape 
from France during the dragonnades which preceded 
and the persecutions which followed the Revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes, there was still a very large 
number ot Huguenots remaining in France who had 
not the means wherewith to fly from their country. 
These were the poorer people, the peasants, the small 
farmers, the small manufacturers, many of whom were 
spoiled of their goods for the very purpose of preventing 
them from emigrating. They were consequently under 
the necessity of remaining in their native country, 
whether they changed their religion by force or not. 
It is to give an account of these people, as a supple- 
ment to my former book, that the present work is 
written. 

It is impossible to fix precisely the number of the 



PREFACE. 



Huguenots who left France to avoid the cruelties of 
Louis XIY., as well as of those who perforce remained 
to endure them. It shakes one's faith in history to 
observe the contradictory statements published with 
regard to French political or religious facts, even of 
recent date. A general impression has long prevailed 
that there was a Massacre of St. Bartholemew in Paris 
in the year 1572 ; but even that has recently been denied, 
or softened down into a mere political squabble. It is 
not, however, possible to deny the fact that there was 
a Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, though 
it has been vindicated as a noble act of legislation, 
worthy even of the reputation and character of Louis 
the Great. 

No two writers agree as to the number of French 
citizens who were driven from their country by the 
Revocation. A learned Roman Catholic, Mr. Charles 
Butler, states that only 50,000 persons "retired" from 
France ; whereas M. Capefigue, equally opposed to the 
Reformation, who consulted the population tables of 
the period (although the intendants made their returns 
as small as possible in order to avoid the reproach of 
negligence), calculates the emigration at 230,000 souls, 
namely, 1,580 ministers, 2,300 elders, 15,000 gentle- 
men, the remainder consisting almost entirely of 
traders and artisans. 

These returns, quoted by M. Capefigue, were made 
only a few years after the Revocation, although the 
emigration continued without intermission for many 
years later. M. Charles Coquerel says that whatever 



Till 



PREFACE. 



iiorror may be felt for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew 
of 1572, the persecutions which preceded and followed 
the Act of Revocation in 1685, "kept France under 
a perpetual St. Bartholomew for about sixty years." 
During that time it is believed that more than 
1,000,000 Frenchmen either left the kingdom, or 
were killed, imprisoned, or sent to the galleys in their 
efforts to escape. 

The Intendant of Saintonge, a King's officer, not 
likely to exaggerate the number of emigrants, reported 
in 1698, long before the emigration had ceased, that his 
province had lost 100,000 Reformers. Languedoc 
suffered far more ; whilst Boulainvilliers reports that 
besides the emigrants who succeeded in making their 
escape, the province lost not fewer than 100,000 
persons by premature death, the sword, strangulation, 
and the wheel. 

The number of French emigrants who resorted to 
England may be inferred from the fact that at the 
beginning of last century there were not fewer than 
thirty -five French Protestant churches in London 
alone, at a time when the population of the metropolis 
was not one-fourth of what it is now ; while there 
were other large French settlements at Canterbury, 
Norwich, Southampton, Bristol, Exeter, &c, as well 
as at Dublin, Lisburn, Portarlington, and other towns 
in Ireland. 

Then, with respect to the much larger number of. 
Protestants who remained in France after the Revoca- 
tion of the Edict of Nantes, there is the same difference 



PREFACE. 



ix 



of opinion. A deputation of Huguenot pastors and 
elders, who waited upon the Due de Noailles in 1682 
informed him that there were then 1,800,000 Protestant 
families in France. Thirty years after that date, 
Louis XI Y. proclaimed that there were no Protestants 
whatever in France ; that Protestantism had been 
entirely suppressed, and that any one found professing 
that faith must be considered as a "relapsed heretic," 
and sentenced to imprisonment, the galleys, or the 
other punishments to which Protestants were then 
subject. 

After an interval of about seventy-five years, during 
which Protestantism (though suppressed by the law) 
contrived to lead a sort of underground life — the 
Protestants meeting by night, and sometimes by day, 
in caves, valleys, moors, woods, old quarries, hollow 
beds of rivers, or, as they themselves called it, "in 
the Desert " — they at length contrived to lift their 
heads into the light of day, and then Rabaut St. 
Etienne stood up in the Constituent Assembly at Paris, 
in 1787, and claimed the rights of his Protestant fellow- 
countrymen — the rights of " 2,000,000 useful citizens." 
Louis XYI. granted them an Edict of Tolerance, about 
a hundred years after Louis XIY. had revoked the 
Edict of Nantes ; but the measure proved too late for 
the King, and too late for France, which had already 
been sacrificed to the intolerance of Louis XIY. and 
his Jesuit advisers. 

After all the sufferings of France — after the 
cruelties to which her people have been subjected by 



X 



PREFACE. 



the tyranny of her monarchs and the intolerance of 
her priests, — it is doubtful whether she has yet learnt 
wisdom from her experience and trials. France was 
brought to ruin a century ago by the Jesuits who held 
the entire education of the country in their hands. 
They have again recovered their ground, and the Con- 
greganistes are now what the J esuits were before. The 
Sans-Cullotes of 1793 were the pupils of the priests ; so 
were the Communists of 1871.* M. Edgar Quinet has 
recently said to his countrymen : " The Jesuitical and 
clerical spirit which has sneaked in among you and all 
your affairs has ruined you. It has corrupted the 
spring of life ; it has delivered you over to the 
enemy ... Is this to last for ever ? For heaven's 
sake spare us at least the sight of a Jesuits' Re- 
public as the coronation of our century." 

In the midst of these prophecies of ruin, we 
have M. Yeuillot frankly avowing his Ultramontane 
policy in the Univers. He is quite willing to go back 
to the old burnings, hangings, and quarterings, to 
prevent any freedom of opinion about religious matters. 
" For my part," he says, " I frankly avow my regret 
not only that John Huss was not burnt sooner, but 
that Luther was not burnt too. And I regret further 
that there has not been some prince sufficiently 
pious and politic to have made a crusade against the 
Protestants." 

M. Yeuillot is perhaps entitled to some respect 
for boldly speaking out what he means and thinks 
* M. Simiot's speech before the National Assembly, 16th March, 1873 



PREFACE. 



There are many amongst ourselves who mean the 
same thing, without having the courage to say so 
— who hate the Reformation quite as much as M. 
Yeuillot does, and would like to see the principles 
of free examination and individual liberty torn up 
root and branch. 

With respect to the proposed crusade against 
Protestantism, it will be seen from the following work 
what the " pious and politic" Louis XI Y. attempted, and 
how very inefficient his measures eventually proved in 
putting down Protestantism, or in extending Catholi- 
cism. Louis XIV. found it easier to make martyrs 
than apostates ; and discovered that hanging, banish- 
ment, the galleys, and the sword were not amongst 
the most successful of " converters." 

The history of the Huguenots during the time of 

their submergence as an "underground church " is 

scarcely treated in the general histories of France. 

Courtly writers blot them out of history as Louis XIY. 

desired to blot them out of France. Most histories of 

France published in England contain little notice of 

them. Those who desire to pursue the subject further, 

will obtain abundant information, more particularly 

from the following works : — 

Elie Benoit : Histoire de F Edit de Nantes. 

Charles Coquebel : Histoire des Eglises du Desert. 

Napoleon Peyrat : Histoire des Pasteurs de Desert. 

Antoine Court : Histoire des Troubles de Cevennes. 

Edmund Hughes : Histoire de la Restaur ation du Protestaniisme m 

France au xviii. Steele. 
A. Bonnemere : Histoire des Camisardes. 
Adolphe Michel : Louvois et Zes Protestante*. 
Athanase Coquerel Fils : Les Formats pour La Foi, #c, 



xii 



PREFACE. 



It remains to be added that part of this work — viz., 
the " Wars of the Camisards," and the " Journey in 
the Country of the Yaudois " — originally appeared in 
Good Words. 

S. S. 



London, October, 1873. 



CONTENTS. 



THE HUGUENOTS IN FRANCE AFTER THE REVOCATION 
OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 

CHAPTEB PAGE 
I. RE YO CATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES 1 

II. EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION — CHURCH IN THE DESERT . 12 

III. CLAUDE BROUSSON, THE HUGUENOT ADVOCATE . . .30 

IV. CLAUDE BROUSSON, PASTOR AND MARTYR . . . " . 50 
V. OUTBREAK. IN LANGUEDOC 75 

VI. INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS 99 

VII. EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER 130 

VIII. END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION 166 

IX. GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH . ..... 190 

X. ANTOINE COURT . .205 

XI. REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT . .218 

XII. THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT PAUL RABAUT . . . 235 

XIII. END OF THE PERSECUTIONS — THE FRENCH REVOLUTION . 253 



A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 

I. INTRODUCTORY— EARLY PERSECUTIONS OF THE VAUDOIS . 287 

II. THE VALLEY OF THE ROMANCHE — BRIANCON . . . 305 

III. VAL LOUISE — HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF .... 324 

IV. THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAIN-REFUGE OF DORMILHOUSB . .341 

V. GUILLESTRE AND THE VALLEY OF QUEYRAS .... 359 

VI. THE VALLEY OF THE PELICE — LA TOUR — ANGROGNA — THE 

PRA DE TOUR 376 

VII. THE GLORIOUS RETURN : AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF 

THE ITALIAN VAUDOIS 39T 



MAPS. 

PAGB 

The Country of the Cevennes 98 

"The Country of Felix Neff " (Dauphiny) . . . 286 
The Valley of Lxjserne . 376 



THE HUGUENOTS IN FEANCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 

THE Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was signed 
by Louis XI Y. of France, on the 18th of October, 
1685, and published four days afterwards. 

Although the Revocation was the personal act of 
the King, it was nevertheless a popular measure, 
approved by the Catholic Church of France, and by 
the great body of the French people. 

The King had solemnly sworn, at the beginning of 
his reign, to maintain the tolerating Edict of Henry IV. 
— the Huguenots being amongst the most industrious, 
enterprising, and loyal of his subjects. But the advo- 
cacy of the King's then Catholic mistress, Madame de 
Maintenon, and of his Jesuit Confessor, Pere la Chaise, 
overcame his scruples, and the deed of Revocation of 
the Edict was at length signed and published. 

The aged Chancellor, Le Tellier, was so overjoyed at 
the measure, that on affixing the great seal of France 
to the deed, he exclaimed, in the words of Simeon, 
" Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, 
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 

B 



2 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Three months later, the great Bossuet, the eagle of 
Meaux, preached the funeral sermon of Le Tellier; in 
the course of which he testified to the immense joy of 
the Church at the Revocation of the Edict. " Let us," 
said he, " expand our hearts in praises of the piety of 
Louis. Let our acclamations ascend to heaven, and 
let us say to this new Constantine, this new Theodosius, 
this new Marcian, this new Charlemagne, what the 
thirty- six fathers formerly said in the Council of Chal- 
cedon : ' You have affirmed the faith, you have extermi- 
nated the heretics ; it is a work worthy of your reign, 
whose proper character it is. Thanks to you, heresy is 
no more. Gcd alone can have worked this marvel. 
King of heaven, preserve the King of earth : it is 
the prayer of the Church, it is the prayer of the 
Bishops.' "* 

Madame de Maintenon also received the praises 
of the Church. "All good people/' said the Abbe de 
Choisy, "the Pope, the bishops, and all the clergy, 
rejoice at the victory of Madame de Main tenon." 
Madame enjoyed the surname of Director of the Affairs 
of the Clergy ; and it was said by the ladies of St. Cyr 
(an institution founded by her), that "the cardinals 
and the bishops knew no other way of approaching the 
King save through her." 

It is generally believed that her price for obtaining 
the King's consent to the Act of Revocation, was the 
withdrawal by the clergy of their opposition to her mar- 
riage with the King; and that the two were privately 
united by the Archbishop of Paris at Versailles, a few 
days after, in the presence of Pere la Chaise and 
two more witnesses. But Louis XIV. never publicly 
recognised De Maintenon as his wife — never rescued 
* Bossuet, " Oraison Funeb^e du Chancellier Leteilier." 



REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 3 



her from the ignominious position in which, she origin- 
ally stood related to him. 

People at court all spoke with immense praises of 
the King's intentions with respect to destroying the 
Huguenots. " Killing them off " was a matter of 
badinage with the courtiers. Madame de Maintenon 
wrote to the Due de Noailles, " The soldiers are kill- 
ing numbers of the fanatics — they hope soon to free 
Languedoc of them." 

That picquante letter-writer, Madame de Sevigne, 
often referred to the Huguenots. She seems to have 
classed them with criminals or wild beasts. When 
residing in Low Brittany during a revolt against 
the Grabelle, a friend wrote to her, " How dull you 
must be ! " " No," replied Madame de Sevigne, " we 
are not so dull — hanging is quite a refreshment to 
me ! They have just taken twenty-four or thirty of 
these men, and are going to throw them off." 

A few days after the Edict had been revoked, she wrote 
to her cousin Bussy, at Paris : " You have doubtless seen 
the Edict by which the King revokes that of Nantes. 
There is nothing so fine as that which it contains, and 
never has any King done, or ever will do, a more 
memorable act." Bussy replied to her : "I immensely 
admire the conduct of the King in destroying the 
Huguenots. The wars which have been waged against 
them, and the St. Bartholomew, have given some 
reputation to the sect. His Majesty has gradually 
undermined it ; and the edict he has just published, 
maintained by the dragoons and by Bourdaloue,* will 
soon give them the coup de grace." 

* Bourdaloue had just been sent from the Jesuit Church of St 
Louis at Paris, to Montpelier, to aid the dragoons in converting the 
Protestants, and bringing them back to the Church. 



4 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



In a future letter to Count Bussy, Madame de Sevigne 
informed him of "a dreadfully fatiguing journey which 
her son-in-law M. de Grignan had made in the moun- 
tains of Dauphiny, to pursue and punish the miser- 
able Huguenots, who issued from their holes, and 
vanished like ghosts to avoid extermination." 

De Baville, however, the Lieutenant of Languedoc, 
kept her in good heart. In one of his letters, he said, 
" I have this morning condemned seventy-six of these 
wretches (Huguenots), and sent them to the galleys." 
All this was very pleasant to Madame de Sevigne. 

Madame de Scuderi, also, more moderately rejoiced 
in the Act of Revocation. "The King," she wrote to 
Bussy, " has worked great marvels against the 
Huguenots ; and the authority which he has employed 
to unite them to the Church will be most salutary to 
themselves and to their children, who will be educated 
in the purity of the faith ; all this will bring upon him 
the benedictions of Heaven." 

Even the French Academy, though originally founded 
by a Huguenot, publicly approved the deed of Revoca- 
tion. In a discourse uttered before it, the Abbe Talle- 
mand exclaimed, when speaking of the Huguenot 
temple at Charenton, which had just been destroyed 
by the mob, " Happy ruins, the finest trophy France 
ever beheld !" La Fontaine described heresy as now 
"reduced to the last gasp." Thomas Corneille also 
eulogized the zeal of the King in " throttling the Re- 
formation." Barbier D'Aucourt heedlessly, but truly, 
compared the emigration of the Protestants " to the 
departure of the Israelites from Egypt." The Academy 
afterwards proposed, as the subject of a poem, the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and Fontenelle had 
the fortune, good or bad, of winning the prize. 



REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 5 



The philosophic La Bruyere contributed a maxim 
in praise of the Revocation. Quinault wrote a poem 
on the subject ; and Madame Deshoulieres felt inspired 
to sing " The Destruction of Heresy." The Abbe de 
Ranee spoke of the whole affair as a prodigy : " The 
Temple of Charenton destroyed, and no exercise of 
Protestantism within the kingdom ; it is a kind of 
miracle, such as we had never hoped to have seen in our 
day." 

The Revocation was popular with the lower class, 
who went about sacking and pulling down the Pro- 
testant churches. They also tracked the Huguenots 
and their pastors, where they found them evading or 
breaking the Edict of Revocation ; thus earning the 
praises of the Church and the tines offered by the King 
for their apprehension. The provosts and sheriffs of 
Paris represented the popular feeling, by erecting a 
brazen statue of the King who had rooted out heresy ; 
and they struck and distributed medals in honour of 
the great event. 

The Revocation was also popular with the dragoons. 
In order to "convert" the Protestants, the dragoons 
were unduly billeted upon them. As both officers and 
soldiers were then very badly paid, they were thereby 
enabled to live at free quarters. They treated every- 
thing in the houses they occupied as if it were their own, 
and an assignment of billets was little less than the con- 
signment of tbe premises to the military, to use for their 
own purposes, during the time they occupied them * 

The Revocation was also approved by those who 
wished to buy land cheap. As the Huguenots were 
prevented holding their estates unless they conformed 
to the Catholic religion, and as many estates were 
* Sir John Keresby's Travels and Memoirs. 



6 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



accordingly confiscated and sold, land speculators, as 
well as grand seigneurs who wished to increase their 
estates, were constantly on the look-out for good bar- 
gains. Even before the Revocation, when the Hugue- 
nots were selling their land in order to leave the 
country, Madame de Maintenon wrote to her nephew, 
for whom she had obtained from the King a grant of 
800,000 francs, " I beg of you carefully to use the 
money you are about to receive. Estates in Poitou 
may be got for nothing ; the desolation of the Hugue- 
nots will drive them to sell more. You may easily 
acquire extensive possessions in Poitou." 

The Revocation was especially gratifying to the 
French Catholic Church. The Pope, of course, ap- 
proved of it. Te Deums were sung at Rome in thanks- 
giving for the forced conversion of the Huguenots. 
Pope Innocent XL sent a brief to Louis XIV., in which 
he promised him the unanimous praises of the Church. 
" Amongst all the proofs/' said he, " which your 
Majesty has given of natural piety, not the least 
brilliant is the zeal, truly worthy of the most Christian 
King, which has induced you to revoke all the or- 
dinances issued in favour of the heretics of your 
kingdom."* 

The Jesuits were especially elated by the Revoca- 
tion. It had been brought about by the intrigues of 
their party, acting on the King's mind through Madame 
de Maintenon and Pere la Chaise. It enabled them 
to fill their schools and nunneries with the children of 
Protestants, who were compelled by law to pay for 
their education by Jesuit priests. To furnish the 
required accommodation, nearly the whole of the Pro- 
testant temples that had not been pulled down were 
* Pope Innocent XL's Letter of November 13th, 1685. 



REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 7 



made oyer to the Jesuits, to be converted into monastic 
schools and nunneries. Even Bossuet, the " last father 
of the Church," shared in the spoils of the Huguenots. 
A few days after the Edict had been revoked, Bossuet 
applied for the materials of the temples of Nauteuil 
and Morcerf, situated in his diocese ; and his Majesty 
ordered that they should be granted to him.* 

Now that Protestantism had been put down, and 
the officers of Louis announced from all parts of the 
kingdom that the Huguenots were becoming converted 
by thousands, there was nothing but a clear course 
before the Jesuits in France. For their religion was 
now the favoured religion of the State. 

It is true there were the J ansenists — declared to be 
heretical by the Popes, and distinguished for their oppo- 
sition to the doctrines and moral teaching of the Jesuits 
— who were suffering from a persecution which then 
drove some of the members of Port Poyal into exile, 
and eventually destroyed them. But even the Jan- 
senists approved the persecution of the Protestants. 
The great Arnault, their most illustrious interpreter, 
though in exile in the Low Countries, declared that 
though the means which Louis XIV. had employed had 
been " rather violent, they had in nowise been unjust." 

But Protestantism being declared destroyed, and 
Jansenism being in disgrace, there was virtually no 
legal religion in France but one — that of the Poman 
Catholic Church. Atheism, it is true, was tolerated, 
but then Atheism was not a religion. The Atheists 
did not, like the Protestants, set up rival churches, or 
appoint rival ministers, and seek to draw people to their 
assemblies. The Atheists, though they tacitly ap- 
proved the religion of the King, had no opposition 
* " Louvois et les Protestants," par Adolphe Michel, p. 286. 



8 THE HUGUENOTS. 



to offer to it — only neglect, and perhaps concealed 
contempt. 

Hence it followed that the Court and the clergy had 
far more toleration for Atheism than for either Pro- 
testantism or Jansenism. It is authentically related 
that Louis XIV. on one occasion objected to the appoint- 
ment of a representative on a foreign mission on account 
of the person being supposed to be a Jansenist; but 
on its being discovered that the nominee was only an 
Atheist, the objection was at once withdrawn.* 

At the time of the Revocation, when the King and 
the Catholic Church were resolved to tolerate no 
religion other than itself, the Church had never seemed 
so powerful in France. It had a strong hold upon the 
minds of the people. It was powerful in its leaders and 
its great preachers ; in fact, France has never, either 
before or since, exhibited such an array of preaching 
genius as Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Flechier, and Massillon. 

Yet the uncontrolled and enormously increased 
power conferred upon the French Church at that 
time, most probably proved its greatest calamity. Less 
than a hundred years after the Revocation, the Church 
had lost its influence over the people, and was despised. 
The Deists and Atheists, sprung from the Church's 
bosom, were in the ascendant ; and Voltaire, Rousseau, 
Diderot, and Mirabeau, were regarded as greater men 
than either Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Flechier, or Massillon. 

Not one of the clergy we have named, powerful 
orators though they were, ever ventured to call in 
question the cruelties with which the King sought 
to compel the Protestants to embrace the dogmas 
of their Church. There were no doubt many Ca- 
tholics who deplored the force practised on the 

* Quarterly Review. 



REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 9 



Huguenots ; but they were greatly in the minority, 
and had no power to make their opposition felt. Some 
of them considered it an impious sacrilege to compel 
the Protestants to take the Catholic sacrament — to force 
them to accept the host, which Catholics believed to be 
the veritable body of Christ, but which the Huguenots 
could only accept as bread, over which some function 
had been performed by the priests, in whose mira- 
culous power of conversion they did not believe. 

Fenelon took this view of the forcible course 
employed by the Jesuits ; but he was in disgrace as a 
Jansenist, and wdiat he wrote on the subject remained 
for a long time unknown, and was only first pub- 
lished in 1825. The Due de Saint-Simon, also a Jan- 
senist, took the same view, which he embodied in 
his " Memoirs ; " but these were kept secret by his 
family, and were not published for nearly a century 
after his death. 

Thus the Catholic Church remained triumphant. 
The Revocation was apparently approved by all, ex- 
cepting the Huguenots. The King was flattered by the 
perpetual conversions reported to be going on through- 
out the country — five thousand persons in one place, 
ten thousand in another, who had abjured and taken 
the communion — at once, and sometimes " instantly." 

" The King," says Saint-Simon, " congratulated 
himself on his power and his piety. He believed himself 
to have renewed the days of the preaching of the 
Apostles, and attributed to himself all the honour. 
The Bishops wrote panegyrics of him ; the Jesuits made 

the pulpits resound with his praises He 

swallowed their poison in deep draughts." * 

* " Memoirs of the Duke of Saint-Simon," translated by Bayle St. 
John, vol. iii. p. 260. 



I 0 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Louis XIV. lived for thirty years after the Edict of 
Nantes had been revoked. He had therefore the 
fullest opportunity of observing the results of the 
policy he had pursued. He died in the hands of the 
Jesuits, his body covered with relics of the true cross. 
Madame de Maintenon, the " famous and fatal witch, " 
as Saint-Simon called her, abandoned him at last ; 
and the King died, lamented by no one. 

He had banished, or destroyed, during his reign, 
about a million of his subjects, and those who remained 
did not respect him. Many regarded him as a self-con- 
ceited tyrant, who sought to save his own soul by inflict- 
ing penance on the backs of others. He loaded his 
kingdom with debt, and overwhelmed his people with 
taxes. He destroyed the industry of France, which 
had been mainly supported by the Huguenots. Towards 
the end of his life he became generally hated ; and 
while his heart was conveyed to the Grand Jesuits, 
his body, which was buried at St. Denis, was hurried to 
the grave accompanied by the execrations of the people. 

Yet the Church remained faithful to him to the 
last. The great Massillon preached his funeral 
sermon ; though the message was draped in the livery 
of the Court. " How far," said he, "did Louis XIV. 
carry his zeal for the Church, that virtue of sovereigns 
who have received power and the sword only that 
they may be props of the altar and defenders of its 
doctrine ! Specious reasons of State ! In vain did you 
oppose to Louis the timid views of human wisdom, the 
body of the monarchy enfeebled by the flight of so 
many citizens, the course of trade slackened, either by 
the deprivation of their industry, or by the furtive 
removal of their wealth ! Dangers fortify his zeal. 
The work of Grod fears not man. He believes even 



REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, r 1 



that lie strengthens his throne by overthrowing that of 
error. The profane temples are destroyed, the pulpits 
of seduction are cast down. The prophets of false- 
hood are torn from their flocks. At the first blow dealt 
to it by Louis, heresy falls, disappears, and is reduced 
either to hide itself in the obscurity whence it issued, 
or to cross the seas, and to bear with it into foreign 
lands its false gods, its bitterness, and its rage." * 

Whatever may have been the temper which the 
Huguenots displayed when they were driven from 
France by persecution, they certainly carried with 
them something far more valuable than rage. They 
carried with them their virtue, piety, industry, and- 
valour, which proved the source of wealth, spirit, 
freedom, and character, in all those countries — Hol- 
land, Prussia, England, and America — in which these 
noble exiles took refuge. 

We shall next see whether the Huguenots had any 
occasion for entertaining the " rage" which the great 
Massillon attributed to them. 



* Funeral Oration on Louis XIV. 



CHAPTER II. 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 

rjlHE Revocation struck with civil death the entire 
J- Protestant population of France. All the liberty 
of conscience which they had enjoyed under the Edict 
of Nantes, was swept away by the act of the King. 
They were deprived of every right and privilege ; their 
social life was destroyed ; their callings were pro- 
scribed ; their property was liable to be confiscated at 
any moment ; and they were subjected to mean, detest- 
able, and outrageous cruelties. 

From the day of the Revocation, the relation of 
Louis XIV. to his Huguenot subjects was that of the 
Tyrant and his Victims. The only resource which 
remained to the latter was that of flying from their 
native country ; and an immense number of persons 
took the opportunity of escaping from France. 

The Edict of Revocation proclaimed that the 
Huguenot subjects of France must thenceforward be 
of " the King's religion ;" and the order was promul- 
gated throughout the kingdom. The Prime Minister, 
Louvois, wrote to the provincial governors, " His 
Majesty desires that the severest rigour shall be shown 
to those who will not conform to His Religion, and 
those who seek the foolish glory of wishing to be the 
last, must be pushed to the utmost extremity." 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 13 



Tlie Huguenots were forbidden, under the penalty oi 
death, to worship publicly after their own religious forms. 
They were also forbidden, under the penalty of being 
sent to the galleys for life, to worship privately in their 
own homes. If they were overheard singing their 
favourite psalms, they were liable to fine, imprisonment, 
or the galleys. They were compelled to hang out flags 
from their houses on the days of Catholic processions ; 
but they were forbidden, under a heavy penalty, to look 
out of their windows when the Corpus Domini was 
borne along the streets. 

The Huguenots were rigidly forbidden to instruct 
their children in their own faith. They were com- 
manded to send them to the priest to be baptized and 
brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, under the 
penalty of five hundred livres fine in each case. The 
boys were educated in Jesuit schools, the girls in 
nunneries, the parents being compelled to pay the 
required expenses ; and where the parents were too 
poor to pay, the children were at once transferred to 
the general hospitals. A decree of the King, published 
in December, 1685, ordered that every child oi five 
years and upwards was to be taken possession of by the 
authorities, and removed from its Protestant parents. 
This decree often proved a sentence of death, not only 
to the child, but to its parents. 

The whole of the Protestant temples throughout 
France were subject to demolition. The expelled 
pastors were compelled to evacuate the country within 
fifteen days. If, in the meantime, they were found 
performing their functions, they were liable to be sent 
to the galleys for life. If they undertook to marry 
Protestants, the marriages were declared illegal, and 
the children bastards. If, after the expiry of the 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



fifteen days, they were found lingering in France, the 
pastors were then liable tc the penalty of death. 

Protestants could neither be born, nor live, nor die, 
without state and priestly interference. Protestant 
sages-femmes were not permitted to exercise their func- 
tions ; Protestant doctors were prohibited from practis- 
ing ; Protestant surgeons and apothecaries were sup- 
pressed ; Protestant advocates, notaries, and lawyers 
were interdicted ; Protestants could not teach, and all 
their schools, public and private, were put down. 
Protestants were no longer employed by the Govern- 
ment in affairs of finance, as collectors of taxes, or even 
as labourers on the public roads, or in any other office. 
Even Protestant grocers were forbidden to exercise 
their calling. 

There must be no Protestant librarians, booksellers, 
or printers. There was, indeed, a general raid upon 
Protestant literature all over France. All Bibles, 
Testaments, and books of religious instruction, were 
collected and publicly burnt. There were bonfires in 
almost every town. At Metz, it occupied a whole day 
to burn the Protestant books which had been seized, 
handed over to the clergy, and condemned to be 
destroyed. 

Protestants were even forbidden to hire out horses, 
and Protestant grooms were forbidden to give riding 
lessons. Protestant domestics were forbidden to hire 
themselves as servants, and Protestant mistresses were 
forbidden to hire them under heavy penalties. If they 
engaged Protestant servants, the}' were liable to be 
sent to the galleys for life. They were even prevented 
employing " new converts." 

Artisans were forbidden to work without certificates 
that their religion was Catholic. Protestant apprentice- 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 



ships were suppressed. Protestant washerwomen were 
excluded from their washing-places on the river. In 
fact, there was scarcely a degradation that could be 
invented, or an insult that could be perpetrated, that 
was not practised upon those poor Huguenots who 
refused to be of " the King's religion." 

Even when Protestants were about to take refuge in 
death, their troubles were not over. The priests had 
the power of forcing their way into the dying man's 
house, where they presented themselves at his bedside, 
and offered him conversion and the viaticum. If the 
dying man refused these, he was liable to be seized after 
death, dragged from the house, pulled along the streets 
naked, and buried in a ditch, or thrown upon a dunghill.* 

For several years before the Revocation, while the 
persecutions of the Huguenots had been increasing, many 
had realised their means, and fled abroad into Switzer- 
land, Germany, Holland, and England. But after the 
Revocation, emigration from France was strictly 
forbidden, under penalty of confiscation of the whole 
goods and property of the emigrant. Any person 
found attempting to leave the country, was liable to 
the seizure of all that belonged to him, and to per- 
petual imprisonment at the galleys ; one half the 
amount realised by the sale of the property being paid 
to the informers, who thus became the most active 
agents of the Government. The Act also ordered that 
all landed proprietors who had left France before the 

* Such was, in fact, the end of a man so distinguished as M. Paul 
Chenevix, Councillor of the Court of Metz, who died in 1686, the year 
after the Revocation. Although of the age of eighty, and so illustrious 
for his learning, his dead hody was dragged along the streets on a 
hurdle and thrown upon a dunghill. See " Huguenot Refugees and 
their Descendants," under the name Chenevix. The present Arch- 
bishop of Dublin is descended from his brother Philip Chenevix, who 
settled in England shortly after the Revocation. 



i6 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Revocation, should return within four months, under 
penalty of confiscation of all their property. 

Amongst those of the King's subjects who were the 
most ready to obey his orders were some of the old 
Huguenot noble families, such as the members of the 
houses of Bouillon, Coligny, Rohan, Tremouille, Sully, 
and La Force. These great vassals, whom a turbulent 
feudalism had probably in the first instance induced to 
embrace Protestantism, were now found ready to change 
their profession of religion in servile obedience to the 
monarch. 

The lesser nobility were more faithful and consistent. 
Many of them abandoned their estates and fled across 
the frontier, rather than live a daily lie to God by for- 
swearing the religion of their conscience. Others of 
this class, on whom religion sat more lightly, as the 
only means of saving their property from confiscation, 
pretended to be converted to Roman Catholicism ; 
though, we shall find, that these "new converts," as 
they were called, were treated with as much suspicion 
on the one side as they were regarded with contempt 
on the other. 

There were also the Huguenot manufacturers, mer- 
chants, and employers of labour, of whom a large 
number closed their workshops and factories, sold off 
their goods, converted everything into cash, at what- 
ever sacrifice, and fled across the frontier into Switzer- 
land — either settling there, or passing through it on 
their way to Germany, Holland, or England. 

It was necessary to stop this emigration, which was 
rapidly diminishing the population, and steadily im- 
poverishing the country. It was indeed a terrible 
thing for Frenchmen to tear themselves away from 
their country — Frenchmen, who have always clung so 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 



close to their soil that they have rarely been able to 
form colonies of emigration elsewhere — it was breaking 
so many living fibres to leave France, to quit the homes 
of their fathers, their firesides, their kin, and their race. 
Yet, in a multitude of cases, they were compelled to tear 
themselves by the roots out of the France they so loved. 

Yet it was so very easy for them to remain. The 
King merely required them to be " converted." He 
held that loyalty required them to be of "his reli- 
gion." On the 19th of October, 1685, the day after he 
had signed the Act of Revocation, La Reynee, lieu- 
tenant of the police of Paris, issued a notice to the 
Huguenot tradespeople and working-classes, requiring 
them to be converted instantly. Many of them were 
terrified, and conformed accordingly. Next day, an- 
other notice was issued to the Huguenot bourgeois, 
requiring them to assemble on the following day for 
the purpose of publicly making a declaration of their 
conversion. 

The result of these measures was to make hypo- 
crites rather than believers, and they took effect 
upon the weakest and least-principled persons. The 
strongest, most independent, and high-minded of the 
Huguenots, who would not be hypocrites, resolved 
passively to resist them, and if they could not be 
allowed to exercise freedom of conscience in their own 
country, they determined to seek it elsewhere. Hence 
the large increase in the emigration from all parts of 
France immediately after the Act of Revocation had 
been proclaimed.* All the roads leading to the frontier 

* It is believed that 400,000 emigrants left France through reli- 
gious persecution during the twenty j^ears previous to the Revocation, 
and that 600,000 escaped during the twenty years after that event. 
M. Charles Coquerel estimates the number of Protestants in France 
at that time to have been two millions of men (" Eglises du Desert," i. 
497). The number of Protestant pastors was about one thousand — 

C 



r8 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



or tlie sea-coast streamed with fugitives. They went in 
various forms and guises — sometimes in bodies of 
armed men, at other times in solitary parties, travel- 
ling at night and sleeping in the woods by day. They 
went as beggars, travelling merchants, sellers of beads 
and chaplets, gipsies, soldiers, shepherds, women with 
their faces dyed and sometimes dressed in men's 
clothes, and in all manner of disguises. 

To prevent this extensive emigration, more violent 
measures were adopted. Every road out of France was 
posted with guards. The towns, highways, bridges, 
and ferries, were all watched ; and heavy rewards were 
promised to those who would stop and bring back the 
fugitives. Many were taken, loaded with irons, and dis- 
patched by the most public roads through France — as a 
sight to be seen by other Protestants — to the galleys at 
Marseilles, Brest, and other ports. As they went along 
they were subject to every sort of indignity in the towns 
and villages through which they passed. They were 
hooted, stoned, spit upon, and loaded with insult. 

Many others went by sea, in French as well as in 
foreign ships. Though the sailors of France were pro- 
hibited the exercise of the reformed religion, under the 
penalty of fines, corporal punishment, and seizure of 
the vessels where the worship was allowed, yet many 
of the emigrants contrived to get away by the help of 
French ship captains, masters of sloops, fishing-boats, 
and coast pilots — who most probably sympathized with 
the views of those who wished to fly their country 
rather than become hypocrites and forswear their 
religion. A large number of emigrants, who went 

of whom six hundred went into exile, one hundred were executed or 
sent to the galleys, and the rest are supposed to have accepted 
pensions as " new converts." 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 



19 



hurriedly off to sea in little boats, must have been 
drowned, as they were never afterwards heard of. 

There were also many English ships that appeared 
off the coast to take the flying Huguenots away hj 
night. They also escaped in foreign ships taking in their 
cargoes in the western harbours. They got cooped up 
in casks or wine barraques, with holes for breathing 
places ; others contrived to get surreptitiously into the 
hold, and stowed themselves away among the goods. 
When it became known to the Government that many 
Protestants were escaping in this way, provision was 
made to meet the case ; and a Royal Order was issued 
that, before any ship was allowed to set sail for a 
foreign port, the hold should be fumigated with deadly 
gas, so that any hidden Huguenot who could not other- 
wise be detected, might thus be suffocated ! * 

In the meantime, however, numerous efforts were 
being made to convert the Huguenots. The King, his 
ministers, the dragoons, the bishops, and clergy used 
all due diligence. " Everybody is now missionary/' 
said the fascinating Madame de Sevigne ; " each has his 
mission — above all the magistrates and governors of 
provinces, helped by the dragoons. It is the grandest 
and finest thing that has ever been imagined and 
executed." f 

The conversions effected by the dragoons were much 
more sudden than those effected by the priests. Some- 
times a hundred or more persons were converted by a 
single troop within an hour. In this way Murillac 
converted thousands of persons in a week. The regi- 

* We refer to " The Huguenots : their Settlements, Churches, and 
Industries in England and Ireland," where a great many incidents 
are given relative to the escape of refugees by land and sea, -which 
need not here be repeated. 

f Letter to the President de Moulceau, November 24th, 1685. 



20 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



merit of Ashfeld converted the whole province of 
Poitou in a month. 

De Noailles was very successful in his conversions. 
He converted Nismes in twenty-four hours ; the day 
after he converted Montpellier ; and he promised in a few 
weeks to deliver all Lower Languedoc from the leprosy 
of heresy. In one of his dispatches soon after the Revo- 
cation, he boasted that he had converted 350 nobility 
and gentry, 54 ministers, and 25,000 individuals of 
various classes. 

The quickness of the conversions effected by the 
dragoons is easily to be accounted for. The principal 
cause was the free quartering of soldiers in the houses 
of the Protestants. The soldiers knew what was the 
object for which they were thus quartered. They lived 
freely in all ways. They drank, swore, shouted, beat 
the heretics, insulted their women, and subjected them 
-co every imaginable outrage and insult. 

One of their methods of making converts was 
borrowed from the persecutions of the Yaudois. It con- 
sisted in forcing the feet of the intended converts into 
boots full of boiling grease, or they would hang them up 
by the feet, sometimes forgetting to cut them down 
until they were dead. They would also force them to 
drink water perpetually, or make them sit under a slow 
dripping upon their heads until they died of madness. 
Sometimes they placed burning coals in their hands, or 
used an instrument of torture resembling that known 
in Scotland as the thumbscrews.* Many of their 
attempts at conversion were accompanied by details 
too hideous to be recorded. 

* Thumbscrews were used in the reign of James IT. Louis and 
James borrowed from each other the means of converting heretics ; 
but whether the origin of the thumbscrew be French or Scotch is not 
known. 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 



21 



Of those who would not be converted, the prisons 
were kept full. They were kept there without the usual 
allowance of straw, and almost without food. In winter 
they had no fire, and at night no lamp. Though ill, they 
had no doctors. Besides the gaoler, their only visitors 
were priests and monks, entreating them to make 
abjuration. Of course many died in prison — feeble 
women, and aged and infirm men. In the society of 
obscene criminals, with whom many were imprisoned, 
they prayed for speedy deliverance by death, and death 
often came to their help. 

More agreeable, but still more insulting, methods of 
conversion were also attempted. Louis tried to bribe 
the pastors by offering them an increase of annual 
pay beyond their former stipends. If there were a Pro-' 
testant judge or advocate, Louvois at once endeavoured 
to bribe him over. For instance, there was a heretical 
syndic of Strasburg, to whom Louvois wrote, "Will 
you be converted? I will give you 6,000 livres of 
pension. — Will you not ? I will dismiss you." 

Of course many of the efforts made to convert the 
Huguenots proved successful. The orders of the Prime 
Minister, the free quarters afforded to the dragoons, 
the preachings and threatenings of the clergy, all 
contributed to terrify the Protestants. The fear of 
being sent to the galleys for life — the threat of losing 
the whole of one's goods and property — the alarm 
of seeing one's household broken up, the children 
seized by the priests and sent to the nearest monkery 
or nunnery for maintenance and education — all these 
considerations doubtless had their effect in increasing 
the number of conversions. 

Persecution is not easy to bear. To have all the 
public powers and authorities employed against one's 



22 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



life, interests, and faith, is what few can persistently 
oppose. And torture, whether it be slow or sudden, is 
what many persons, by reason of their physical capa- 
city, have not the power to resist. Even the slow 
torment of dragoons quartered in the houses of the 
heretics — their noise and shoutings, their drinking 
and roistering, the insults and outrages they were 
allowed to practise — was sufficient to compel many 
at once to declare themselves to be converted. 

Indeed, pain is, of all things, one of the most terrible 
of converters. One of the prisoners condemned to the 
galleys, when he saw the tortures which the victims 
about him had to endure by night and by day, said that 
sufferings such as these were " enough to make one 
conform to Buddhism or Mahommedanism as well as 
to Popery " ; and doubtless it was force and suffering 
which converted the Huguenots, far more than love of 
the King or love of the Pope. 

By all these means — forcible, threatening, insulting, 
and bribing — employed for the conversion of the 
Huguenots, the Catholics boasted that in the space of 
three months they had received an accession of five 
hundred thousand new converts to the Church of Pome. 

But the " new converts " did not gain much by their 
change. They were forced to attend mass, but re- 
mained suspected. Even the dragoons who converted 
them, called them dastards and deniers of their faith. 
They tried, if they could, to avoid confession, but con- 
fess they must. There was the fine, confiscation of 
goods, and imprisonment at the priest's back. 

Places were set apart for them in the churches, 
where they were penned up like lepers. A person was 
stationed at the door with a roll of their names, to 
which they were obliged to answer. During the ser- 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 



vice, the most prominent among them were made to 
carry the lights, the holy water, the incense, and such 
things, which to Huguenots were an abomination. 
They were also required to partake of the Host, which 
Protestants regarded as an awful mockery of the glorious 
Godhead. 

The Due de Saint-Simon, in his memoirs, after 
referring to the unmanly cruelties practised by Louis 
XI Y. on the Huguenots, " without the slightest pre- 
text or necessity," characterizes this forced partici-. 
pation in the Eucharist as sacrilegious and blasphemous 
folly, notwithstanding that nearly all the bishops lent 
themselves to the practice. " From simulated abjura- 
tion, he says, " they [the Huguenots] are dragged to 
endorse what they do not believe in, and to receive 
the divine body of the Saint of saints whilst remaining 
persuaded that they are only eating bread which they 
ought to abhor. Such is the general abomination bom 
of flattery and cruelty. From torture to abjuration, 
and from that to the communion, there were only 
twenty-four hours' distance ; and the executioners were 
the conductors of the converts, and their witnesses. 
Those who in the end appeared to have become recon- 
ciled, when more at leisure did not fail, by their flight 
or their behaviour, to contradict their pretended con- 
version."* 

Indeed, many of the new converts, finding life in 
France to be all but intolerable, determined to follow 
the example of the Huguenots who had already fled, 
and took the first opportunity of disposing of their goods 
and leaving the country. One of the first things they 
did on reaching a foreign soil, was to attend a congre- 

* "Memoirs of the Duke of Saint- Simon," Bayle St. John's Trans- 
lation, iii. 259. 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



gation of their brethren, and make " reconnaisances," 
or acknowledgment of their repentance for having 
attended mass and pretended to be converted to the 
Roman Catholic Church.* At one of the sittings 
of the Threadneedle Street Huguenot Church in 
London, held in May, 1687 — two years after the Re- 
vocation — not fewer than 497 members were again 
received into the Church which, by force, they had 
pretended to abandon. 

Not many pastors abjured. A few who yielded in 
the first instance through terror and stupor, almost 
invariably returned to their ancient faith. They were 
offered considerable pensions if they would conform 
and become Catholics. The King promised to augment 
their income by one-third, and if they became advo- 
cates or doctors in law, to dispense with their three 
years' study, and with the right of diploma. 

At length, most of the pastors had left the country. 
About seven hundred had gone into Switzerland, Hol- 
land, Prussia, England, and elsewhere. A few remained 
going about to meetings of the peasantry, at the daily 
risk of death ; for every pastor taken was hung. A 
reward of 5,500 livres was promised to whoever should 
take a pastor, or cause him to be taken. The punish- 
ment of death was also pronounced against all persons 
who should be discovered attending such meetings. 

Nevertheless, meetings of the Protestants continued 
to be held, with pastors or without. They were, for the 
most part, held at night, amidst the ruins of their 
pulled-down temples. But this exposed them to great 
danger, for spies were on the alert to inform upon them 
and have them apprehended. 

* See "The Huguenots; their Settlements, &c, in England and 
Ireland," chap. xvi. 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 



At length they selected more sheltered places in re- 
mote quarters, where they met for prayer and praise, 
often resorting thither from great distances. They 
were, however, often surprised, cut to pieces by the 
dragoons, who hung part of the prisoners on the 
neighbouring trees, and took the others to prison, from 
whence they were sent to the galleys, or hung on the 
nearest public gibbet. 

Fulcran Key was one of the most celebrated of the 
early victims. He was a native of Nismes, twenty- 
four years old. He had just completed his theological 
studies ; but there were neither synods to receive him 
to pastoral ordination, nor temples for him to preach 
in. The only reward he could earn by proceeding on 
his mission was death, yet he determined to preach. 
The first assemblies he joined were in the neighbour- 
hood of Nismes, where his addresses were interrupted 
by assaults of the dragoons. The dangers to his 
co-religionaries were too great in the neighbourhood 
of this populous town ; and he next went to Castres 
and the Yaunage ; after which he accepted an in- 
vitation to proceed into the less populous districts of 
the Cevennes. 

He felt the presentiment of death upon him in ac- 
cepting the invitation; but he went, leaving behind 
him a letter to his father, saying that he was willing, if 
necessary, to give his life for the cause of truth. " Oh ! 
what happiness it would give me," he said, " if I might 
be found amongst the number of those whom the Lord 
has reserved to announce his praise and to die for his 
cause ! " 

His apostolate was short but glorious. He went from 
village to village in the Cevennes, collected the old 
worshippers together, prayed and preached to them, 



25 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



encouraging all to suffer in the name of Christ. He 
remained at this work for about six weeks, when a spy 
who accompanied him — one whom he had regarded 
as sincere a Huguenot as himself — informed against 
him for the royal reward, and delivered him over to 
the dragoons. 

Hey was at first thrown into prison at Anduze, when, 
after a brief examination by the local judge, he was 
entrusted to thirty soldiers, to be conveyed to Alais. 
There he was subjected to further examination, avow- 
ing that he had preached wherever he had found faith- 
ful people ready to hear him. At Is ismes, he was told 
that he had broken the law, in preaching contrary to 
the King's will. "I obey the law of the King of 
kings/' he replied; "it is right that I should obey 
Grod rather than man. Do with me what you will ; I 
am ready to die." 

The priests, the judges, and other persons of in- 
fluence endeavoured to induce him to change his 
opinions. Promises of great favours were offered him 
if he would abjure ; and when the intendant Baville 
informed him of the frightful death before him if he 
refused, he replied, " My life is not of value to me, pro- 
vided I gain Christ." He remained firm. He was 
ordered to be put to the torture. He was still un- 
shaken. Then he was delivered over to the executioner. 
"I am treated," he said, "more mildly than my 
Saviour." 

On his way to the place of execution, two monks 
walked by his side to induce him to relent, and 
to help him to die. "Let me alone," he said, 
" you annoy me with your consolations." On coming 
in sight of the gallows at Beaucaire, he cried, 
"Courage, courage! the end of my journey is at 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 



hand. I see before me the ladder which leads to 
heaven/' 

The monks wished to mount the ladder with him. 
"Return," said he, "I have no need of your help. I 
have assistance enough from Grod to take the last step 
of my journey." When he reached the upper platform, 
he was about, before dying, to make public his con- 
fession of faith. But the authorities had arranged 
beforehand that this should be prevented. When he 
opened his mouth, a roll of military drums muffled his 
voice. His radiant look and gestures spoke for him. 
A few minutes more, and he was dead ; and when the 
paleness of death spread over his face, it still bore the 
reflex of joy and peace in which he had expired. 
" There is a veritable martyr," said many even of the 
Catholics who were witnesses of his death. 

It was thought that the public hanging of a pastor 
would put a stop to all further ministrations among the 
Huguenots. But the sight of the bodies of their 
brethren hung on the nearest trees, and the heads of 
their pastors rolling on the scaffold, did not deter them 
from continuing to hold religious meetings in solitary 
places, more especially in Languedoc, Yiverais, and the 
provinces in the south-east of France. 

Between the year 1686, when Fulcran Rey was 
hanged at Beaucaire, and the year 1698, when Claude 
Brousson was hanged at Montpellier, not fewer than 
seventeen pastors were publicly executed ; namely, 
three at Msmes, two at St. Hippolyte and Marsillargues 
in the Cevennes, and twelve on the Peyrou at Mont- 
pellier — the public place on which Protestant 
Christians in the South of France were then princi- 
pally executed. 

There has been some discussion lately as to the 



2 8 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



massacre of the Huguenots about a century before this 
period. It has been held that the St. Bartholomew 
Massacre was only a political squabble, begun by the 
Huguenots, in which they got the worst of it. The 
number of persons killed on the occasion has been 
reduced to a very small number. It has been doubted 
whether the Pope had anything to do with the medal 
struck at Bonie, bearing the motto Ugonottorum Strages 
("Massacre of the Huguenots"), with the Pope's head 
on one side, and an angel on the other pursuing and 
slaying a band of flying heretics. 

Whatever may be said of the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, there can be no mistake about the per- 
secutions which preceded and followed the Bevocation 
of the Edict of Nantes. They were continued for more 
than half a century, and had the effect of driving from 
France about a million of the best, most vigorous, and 
industrious of Frenchmen. In the single province of 
Languedoc, not less than a hundred thousand persons 
(according to Boulainvillers) were destroyed by prema- 
ture death, one-tenth of whom perished by fire, strangu- 
lation, or the wheel. 

It could not be said that Louis XIY. and the priests 
were destroying France and tearing its flesh, and that 
Frenchmen did not know it. The proclamations, edicts 
and laws published against the Huguenots were known 
to all Frenchmen. Benoit* gives a list of three 
hundred and thirty-three issued by Louis XIY. during 
the ten years subsequent to the B evocation, and they 
were continued, as we shall find, during the succeeding 
reign. 

" We have/' says M. Charles Coquerel, " a horror of 
* " Histoire de l'Edit de Nantes," par Elie Benoit. 



EFFECTS OF THE REVOCATION. 



29 



St. Bartholomew ! Will foreigners believe it, that 
France observed a code of laws framed in the same 
infernal spirit, which maintained a perpetual St. Bar- 
tholomew'' 8 day in this country for about sixty years ! 
If they cannot call us the most barbarous of people, 
their judgment will be well founded in pronouncing us 
the most inconsistent."* 

M. De Felice, however, will not believe that the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was popular in 
France. • He takes a much more patriotic view of the 
French people. He cannot believe them to have been 
wilfully guilty of the barbarities which the French 
Government committed upon the Huguenots. It was 
the King, the priests, and the courtiers only ! But 
he forgets that these upper barbarians were supported 
by the soldiers and the people everywhere. He adds, 
however, that if the Revocation were popular, " it 
would be the most overwhelming accusation against 
the Church of Rome, that it had thus educated and 
fashioned France." t There is, however, no doubt 
whatever that the Jesuits, during the long period that 
they had the exclusive education of the country in 
their hands, did thus fashion France ; for, in 1793, ^ 
the people educated by them treated King, Jesuits, 
priests, and aristocracy, in precisely the same manner 
that they had treated the Huguenots about a century 
before. 

* "Histoire des Eglises du Desert," par Charles Coquerel, i. 498. 
f De Felice's " History of the Protestants of Franco," book iii. 
sect. 17. 



CHAPTER III. 



CLAUDE BROUSSON, THE HUGUENOT ADVOCATE. 

TO give an account in detail of the varieties of cruelty 
inflicted on the Huguenots, and of the agonies to 
which they were subjected for many years before and 
after the passing of the Act of Revocation, would occupy 
too much space, besides being tedious through the mere 
repetition of like horrors. But in order to condense 
such an account, we think it will be more interesting if 
we endeavour to give a brief history of the state of 
France at that time, in connection with the biography 
of one of the most celebrated Huguenots of his period, 
both in his life, his piety, his trials, and his endurance 
— that of Claude Brousson, the advocate, the pastor, 
and the martyr of Languedoc. 

Claude Brousson was born at Msmes in 1647. He 
was designed by his parents for the profession of the 
law, and prosecuted his studies at the college of his 
native town, where he graduated as Doctor of Laws. 

He commenced his professional career about the time 
when Louis XIY. began to issue his oppressive edicts 
against the Huguenots. Protestant advocates were not 
yet forbidden to practise, but they already laboured under 
many disabilities. He continued, however, for some 
time to exercise his profession, with much ability, at 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



3* 



Castres, Castelnaudry, and Toulouse. He was fre- 
quently employed in defending Protestant pastors, 
and in contesting the measures for suppressing their 
congregations and levelling their churches under exist- 
ing edicts, some time before the Revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes had been finally resolved upon. 

Thus, in 1682, he was engaged in disputing the pro- 
cess instituted against the ministers and elders of the 
church at Msmes, with the view of obtaining an order 
for the demolition of the remaining Protestant temple 
of that city.* The pretext for suppressing this church 
was, that a servant girl from the country, being a 
Catholic, had attended worship and received the sacra- 
ment from the hands of M. Peyrol, one of the 
ministers. 

Brousson defended the case, observing, at the con- 
clusion of his speech, that the number of Protestants 
was very great at lusmes ; that the ministers could 
not be personally acquainted with all the people, and 
especially with occasional visitors and strangers ; that 
the ministers were quite unacquainted with the girl, or 
that she professed the Roman Catholic religion : " facts 
which rendered it probable that she was sent to the 
temple for the purpose of furnishing an occasion for 
the prosecution.' ' Sentence was for the present 
suspended. 

Another process was instituted during the same year 

* John Locke passed through Nismes about this time. " The 
Protestants at Nismes," he said, "have now but one temple, the 
other being pulled down by the King's order about four years since. 
The Protestants had built themselves an hospital for the sick, but 
that is taken from them ; a chamber in it is left for the sick, but 
never used, because the priests trouble them when there. Notwith- 
standing these discouragements [this was in 1676, before the Bevo- 
cation], I do not find many go over ; one of them told me, when I 
asked them the question, that the Papists did nothing but by force or 
by money." — King's Life of Locke, i. 100. 



3* 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



for the suppression of the Protestant church at Uzes, 
and another for the demolition of the large Protestant 
temple at Montpellier. The pretext for destroying the 
latter was of a singular character. 

A Protestant pastor, M. Paulet, had been bribed 
into embracing the Roman Catholic religion, in 
reward for which he was appointed counsellor to the 
Presidial Court of Montpellier. But his wife and one 
of his daughters refused to apostatize with him. The 
daughter, though only between ten and eleven years 
old, was sent to a convent at Teirargues, where, after 
enduring considerable persecution, she persisted in her 
steadfastness, and was released after a twelvemonth's 
confinement. Five years later she was again seized 
and sent to another convent ; but, continuing immov- 
able against the entreaties and threats of the abbess 
and confessor, she was again set at liberty. 

An apostate priest, however, who had many years 
before renounced the Protestant faith, and become 
director and confessor of the nuns at Teirargues, forged 
two documents ; the one to show that while at the 
convent, Mdlle. Paulet had consented to embrace the 
Catholic religion, and the other containing her formal 
abjuration. It was alleged that her abjuration had 
been signified to Isaac Dubourdieu, of Montpellier, one 
of the most distinguished pastors of the French Church ; 
but that, nevertheless, he had admitted her to the 
sacrament. This, if true, was contrary to law ; upon 
which the Catholic clergy laid information against the 
pastor and the young lady before the Parliament of 
Toulouse, when they obtained sentence of imprisonment 
against the former, and the penance of amende honor- 
able against the latter. 

The demolition of temples was the usual consequence 



CLAUDE B ROUS SON. 



33 



of convictions like these. The Due de Noailles, lieu- 
tenant-general of the province, entered the city on 
the 16th of October, 1682, accompanied by a strong 
military force ; and at a sitting of the Assembly of the 
States which shortly followed, the question of demolish- 
ing the Protestant temple at Montpellier was brought 
under consideration. Four of the Protestant pastors 
and several of the elders had before waited upon De 
Noailles to claim a respite until they should have 
submitted their cause to the King in Council. 

The request having been refused, one of the deputa- 
tion protested against the illegality of the proceedings, 
and had the temerity to ask his excellency whether he 
was aware that there were eighteen hundred thousand 
Protestant families in Prance ? Upon which the Duke, 
turning to the officer of his guard, said, " Whilst we 
wait to see what will become of these eighteen hundred 
thousand Protestant families, will you please to conduct 
these gentlemen to the citadel ? 

The great temple of Montpellier was destroyed im- 
mediately on receipt of the King's royal mandate. It 
required the destruction of the place within twenty- four 
hours ; " but you will give me pleasure," added the 
King, in a letter to De Noailles, " if you accomplish it 
in two." 

It was, perhaps, scarcely necessary, after the temple 
had been destroyed, to make any effort to justify these 
high-handed proceedings. But Mdlle. Paulet, on 
whose pretended conversion to Catholicism the pro- 
ceedings had been instituted, was now requested to 
admit the authenticity of the documents. She was still 

* When released from prison, G-aultier escaped to Berlin and 
became minister of a large Protestant congregation there. Isaae 
Dubourdieu escaped to England, and was appointed one of the 
ministers of the Savoy Church in London. 



34 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



imprisoned in Toulouse ; and although entreated and 
threatened by turns to admit their truth, she steadfastly 
denied their genuineness, and asking for a pen, she wrote 
under each of'them, " I affirm that the above signature 
was not written by my hand. — Isabeau de Paulet." 

Of course the documents were forged ; but they had 
answered their purpose. The Protestant temple of 
Montpellier lay in ruins, and Isabeau de Paulet was re- 
committed to prison. On hearing of this incident, 
Brousson remarked, " This is what is called instituting 
a process against persons after they have been con- 
demned " — a sort of " Jedwood justice." 

The repetition of these cases of persecution — the de- 
molition of their churches, and the suppression of their 
worship — led the Protestants of the Cevennes, Yiverais, 
and Dauphiny to combine for the purpose of endeavour- 
ing to stem the torrent of injustice. With this object, 
a meeting of twenty-eight deputies took place in the 
house of Brousson, at Toulouse, in the month of May, 
1683. As the Assembly of the States were about to 
take steps to demolish the Protestant temple at Mon- 
tauban and other towns in the south, and as Brousson 
was the well-known advocate of the persecuted, the 
cTeputies were able to meet at his house to conduct their 
deliberations, without exciting the jealousy of the 
priests and the vigilance of the police. 

What the meeting of Protestant deputies recom- 
mended to their brethren was embodied in a measure, 
which was afterwards known as "The Project." The 
chief objects of the project were to exhort the Protestant 
people to sincere conversion, and the exhibition of the 
good life which such conversion implies ; constant 
prayer to the Holy Spirit to enable them to remain 
steadfast in their profession and in the reading and medi- 



CLAUDE B ROUS SON. 



3 5 



tation of the Scriptures ; encouragements to them to hold 
together as congregations for the purpose of united 
worship ; " submitting themselves unto the common in- 
structions and to the yoke of Christ, in all places where- 
soever He shall have established the true discipline, 
although the edicts of earthly magistrates be contrary 
thereto." 

At the same time, Brousson drew up a petition to the 
Sovereign, humbly requesting him to grant permission 
to the Huguenots to worship God in peace after their 
consciences, copies of which were sent to Louvois and 
the other ministers of State. On this and other peti- 
tions, Brousson observes, " Surely all the world and 
posterity will be surprised, that so many respectful 
petitions, so many complaints of injuries, and so many 
solid reasons urged for their removal, produced no 
good result whatever in favour of the Protestants.' ' 

The members of the churches which had been inter- 
dicted, and whose temples had been demolished, were 
accordingly invited to assemble in private, in the neigh- 
bouring fields or woods — 'not in public places, nor 
around the ruins of their ancient temples — for the pur- 
pose of worshipping Gfod, exciting each other to piety 
by prayer and singing, receiving instruction, and cele- 
brating the Lord's Supper. 

Yarious meetings were accordingly held, in the 
following month of July, in the Cevennes and Yiverais. 
At St. Hypolite, where the temple of the Protestants had 
been destroyed, about four thousand persons met in a 
field near the town, when the minister preached to them 
from the text — "Pender unto Caesar the things which 
are Caesar's, and unto (rod the things which are Grod's." 
The meeting was conducted with the utmost solemnity ; 
and a Catholic priest who was present, on giving in- 



3^ 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



formation to the Bishop of Nismes of the transaction, 
admitted that the preacher had advanced nothing but 
what the bishop himself might have spoken. 

The dragoons were at once sent to St. Hypolite to 
put an end to these meetings, and to " convert " the 
Protestants. The town was almost wholly Protestant. 
The troops were quartered in numbers in every house ; 
and the people soon became " new converts." 

The losses sustained by the inhabitants of the 
Cevennes from this forced quartering of the troops 
upon them — and Anduze, Sauve, St. Germain, Vigan, 
and Ganges were as full of them as St. Hypolite — may 
be inferred from the items charged upon the inhabit- 
ants of St. Hypolite alone * : — - 



To the regiment of Montpezat, for a billet for 

sixty-live days 50,000 livres. 

To the three companies of Ked Dragoons, 

for ninety-five days .... 30,000 „ 
To three companies of Villeneuve's Dragoons, 

for thirty days 6,000 „ 

To three companies of the Blue Dragoons of 

Languedoc, for three months and nine days 37,000 
To a company of Cravates (troopers) for 

fourteen days . . . . . 1,400 „ 
To the transport of three hundred and nine 

companies of cavalry and infantry . . 10,000 „ 

To provisions for the troops .... 60,000 „ 
To damage sustained by the destruction done 

by the soldiers, of furniture, and losses 

by the seizure of property, &c. . . 50,000 „ 



Total 244,400 



Meetings of the persecuted were also held, under the 
terms of " The Project," in Yiverais and Dauphiny. 
These meetings having been repeated for several weeks, 
the priests of the respective districts called upon their 
bishops for help to put down this heretical display. The 



* Claude Brousson, " Apologie du Projet des Eeforme." 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



37 



Bishop of Valence (Daniel de Cosmac) accordingly 
informed them that he had taken the necessary steps, 
and that he had been apprised that twenty thousand 
soldiers were now on their march to the South to put 
down the Protestant movement. 

On their arrival, the troops were scattered over the 
country, to watch and suppress any meetings that 
might be held. The first took place on the 8th of 
August, at Chateaudouble, a manufacturing village in 
Drome. The assembly was surprised by a troop of 
dragoons ; but most of the congregation contrived to 
escape. Those who were taken were hung upon the 
nearest trees. 

Another meeting was held about a fortnight later at 
Bezaudun, which was attended by many persons from 
Bourdeaux, a village about half a league distant. 
"While the meeting was at prayer, intelligence was 
brought that the dragoons had entered Bourdeaux, and 
that it was a scene of general pillage. The Bourdeaux 
villagers at once set out for the protection of their 
families. The troopers met them, and suddenly fell 
upon them. A few of the villagers were armed, but 
the principal part defended themselves with stones. Of 
course they were overpowered ; many were killed by 
the sword, and those taken prisoners were immediately 
hanged. 

A few, who took to flight, sheltered themselves in a 
barn, where the soldiers found them, set fire to the 
place, and murdered them as they endeavoured to 
escape from the flames. One young man was taken 
prisoner, David Chamier,* son of an advocate, and 

* The grandfather of this Chamier drew up for Henry IV. the 
celebrated Edict of Nantes. The greater number of the Chamiers 
left France. Several were ministers in London and Maryland, U.S. 
Captain Chamier is descended from the family. 



38 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



related to some of tlie most eminent Protestants in 
France. He was taken to the neighbouring town of 
Montelimar, and, after a summary trial, he was con- 
demned to be broken to death upon the wheel. The 
sentence was executed before his father's door ; but the 
young man bore his frightful tortures with astonishing 
courage. 

The contumacious attitude of the Protestants after so 
many reports had reached Louis XIV. of their entire 
" conversion/' induced him to take more active 
measures for their suppression. He appointed Mar- 
shal Saint-Ruth commander of the district — a man 
who was a stranger to mercy, who breathed only car- 
nage, and who, because of his ferocity, was known as 
" The Scourge of the Heretics." 

Daniel de Cosniac, Bishop of Valence, had now the help 
of Saint-Ruth and his twenty thousand troops. The in- 
structions Saint-Ruth received from Louvois were these : 
"Amnesty has no longer any place for the Viverais, 
who continue in rebellion after having been informed 
of the King's gracious designs. In one word, you are 
to cause such a desolation in that country that its ex- 
ample may restrain all other Huguenots, and may teach 
them how dangerous it is to rebel against the King." 

This was a work quite congenial to Saint-Ruth* — 

* Saint-Faith was afterwards, in 1691, sent to Ireland to take the 
command of the army fighiing for James II. against William III. 
There, Saint-Ruth had soldiers, many of them Huguenots hanished 
from France, to contend with ; and he was accordingly somewhat 
less successful than in Viverais, where his opponents were mostly 
peasants and workmen, armed (where armed at all) with stones picked 
from the roads. Saint-Ruth and his garrison were driven from 
Athlone, where a Huguenot soldier was the first to mount the hreach. 
The army of William III., though eight thousand fewer in number, 
followed Saint-Ruth and his Irish army to the field, of Aughrim. 
His host was there drawn up in an almost impregnable position — 
along the heighls of Kilcommeden, with the Castle of Aughrim on 
his left wing, a deep hog on his right, and another bog of about two 



CLAUDE B ROUS SON. 



3'-) 



rushing about the country, scourging, slaughtering, 
laying waste, and suppressing the assemblies — his 
soldiers rushing upon their victims with cries of 
" Death or the Mass I" 

Tracking the Protestants in this way was like " a 
hunt in a great enclosure." When the soldiers found 
a meeting of the people going on, they shot them down 
at once, though unarmed. If they were unable to fly, 
they met death upon their knees. Antoine Court 
recounts meetings in which as many as between three 
and four hundred persons, old men, women, and chil- 
dren, were shot dead on the spot. 

De Cosmac, the bishop, was yery active in the midst 
of these massacres. When he went out to convert the 
people, he first began by sending out Saint-Ruth with 
the dragoons. Afterwards he himself followed to give 
instructions for their " conversion," partly through 
favours, partly by money. "My efforts," he himself 
admitted, " were not always without success ; yet I 
must avow that the fear of the dragoons, and of their 
being quartered in the houses of the heretics, contri- 
buted much more to their conversion than anything 
that I did." 

The same course was followed throughout the 
Cevennes. It would be a simple record of cruelty 
to describe in detail the military proceedings there : 
the dispersion of meetings ; the hanging of persons 

miles extending along the front, and apparently completely pro- 
tecting the Irish encampment. Nevertheless, the English and 
Huguenot army under Ginckle, bravely attacked it, forced the pass 
to the camp, and routed the army of Saint-Ruth, who himself was 
killed by a cannon-ball. The principal share of this victory was 
attributed to the gallant conduct of the three regiments of Huguenot 
horse, under the command of the Marquess de Ruvigny (himself a 
banished Huguenot nobleman) who, in consequence of his services, 
was raised to the Irish peerage, under the title of Earl of Galway. 



4 o 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



found attending them ; the breaking upon the wheel 
of the pastors captured, amidst horrible tortures ; the 
destruction of dwellings and of the household goods 
which they contained. But let us take the single in- 
stance of Homel, formerly pastor of the church at 
Soyon. 

Homel was taken prisoner, and found guilty of 
preaching to his flock after his temple had been 
destroyed. For this offence he was sentenced to be 
broken to death upon the wheel. To receive this 
punishment he was conducted to Tournon, in Yiverais, 
where the Jesuits had a college. He first received forty 
blows of the iron bar, after which he was left to languish 
with his bones broken, for forty hours, until he died. 
During his torments, he said : " I count myself happy 
that I can die in my Master's service. What ! did my 
glorious Redeemer descend from heaven and suffer an 
ignominious death for my salvation, and shall I, to 
prolong a miserable life, deny my blessed Saviour and 
abandon his people ?" While his bones were being 
broken on the wheel, he said to his wife : " Farewell, 
once more, my beloved spouse ! Though you witness my 
bones broken to shivers, yet is my soul filled with in- 
expressible j oy ." After life was finally extinct, his heart 
was taken to Chalencon to be publicly exhibited, and 
his body was exposed in like manner at Beauchatel. 

De Noailles, the governor, when referring in one of 
his dispatches to the heroism displayed by the tortured 
prisoners, said : " These wretches go to the wheel 
with the firm assurance of dying martyrs, and ask no 
other favour than that of dying quickly. They request 
pardon of the soldiers, but there is not one of them 
that will ask pardon of the King." 

To return to Claude Brousson. After his eloquent 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



4.1 



defence of the Huguenots of Montauban — the result of 
which, of course, was that the church was ordered to 
be demolished — and the institution of processes for 
the demolition of fourteen more Protestant temples, 
Brousson at last became aware that the fury of the 
Catholics and the King was not to be satisfied until 
they had utterly crushed the religion which he served. 

Brousson was repeatedly offered the office of 
counsellor of Parliament, equivalent to the office of 
judge, if he would prove an apostate ; but the conscience 
of Brousson was not one that could be bought. He 
also found that his office of defender of the doomed 
Huguenots could not be maintained without personal 
danger, whilst (as events proved) his defence was of no 
avail to them ; and he resolved, with much regret, to 
give up his profession for a time, and retire for safety 
and rest to his native town of Nismes. 

He resided there, however, only about four months. 
Saint-Ruth and De Noailles were now overawing Upper 
Languedoc with their troops. The Protestants of 
Nismes had taken no part in "The Project;" their 
remaining temple was still open. But they got up a 
respectful petition to the King, imploring his considera- 
tion of their case. Roman Catholics and Protestants, 
they said, had so many interests in common, that the 
ruin of the one must have the effect of ruining the other, 
— the flourishing manufactures of the province, which 
were mostly followed by the Protestants, being now 
rapidly proceeding to ruin. They, therefore, implored 
his Majesty to grant them permission to prosecute their 
employments unmolested on account of their religious 
profession ; and lastly, they conjured the King, by his 
piety, by his paternal clemency, and by every law of 
equity, to grant them freedom of religious worship. 



4 2 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



It was of no use. The hearts of the Xing, his 
clergy, and his ministers, were all hardened against 
them. A copy of the above petition was presented by 
two ministers of Msmes and several influential gentle- 
men of Lower Languedoc to the Duke de JSToailles, the 
governor of the province. He treated the deputation 
with contempt, and their petition with scorn. Writing 
to Louvois, the King's prime minister, De Noailles 
said : " Astonished at the effrontery of these wretched 
persons, I did not hesitate to send them all prisoners 
to the Citadel of St. Esprit (in the Cevennes), telling 
them that if there had been peiites maisons* enough in 
Languedoc I should not have sent them there. " 

JNismes was now placed under the same ban as 
Yivarais, and denounced as " insurrectionary." To 
quell the pretended revolt, as well as to capture certain 
persons who were supposed to have been accessory to 
the framing of the petition, a detachment of four 
hundred dragoons was ordered into the place. One 
of those to be apprehended was Claude Brousson. 
Hundreds of persons knew of his abode in the city, but 
notwithstanding the public proclamation (which he 
himself heard from the window of the house where he 
was staying), and the reward offered for his apprehen- 
sion, no one attempted to betray him. 

After remaining in the city for three days, he 
adopted a disguised dress, passed out of the Crown 
Gate, and in the course of a few days found a safe 
retreat in Switzerland. 

Peyrol and Icard, two of the Protestant ministers 
whom the dragoons were ordered to apprehend, 
also escaped into Switzerland, Peyrol settling at 

* The prisons of Languedoc were already crowded with Protestants, 
and hundreds had been sent to the galleys at Marseilles. 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



45 



Lausanne, and Icard becoming the minister of a 
Huguenot church in Holland. But although the 
ministers had escaped, all the property they had left 
behind them was confiscated to the Crown. Hideous 
effigies of them were prepared and hung on gibbets in 
the market-place of Msmes by the public executioner, 
the magistrates and dragoons attending the sham pro- 
ceeding with the usual ceremony. 

At Lausanne, where Claude Brousson settled for a 
time, he first attempted to occupy himself as a lawyer ; 
but this he shortly gave up to devote himself to the 
help of the persecuted Huguenots. Like Jurieu 
and others in Holland, who flooded Europe with 
accounts of the hideous cruelties of Louis XIY. and 
his myrmidons the clergy and dragoons, he composed 
and published a work, addressed to the Roman Catholic 
party as well as to the Protestants of all countries, 
entitled, " The State of the Reformed Church of 
France." He afterwards composed a series of letters 
specially addressed to the Roman Catholic clergy of 
France. 

But expostulation was of no use. With each suc- 
ceeding year the persecution became more bitter, until 
at length, in 1685, the Edict was revoked. In September 
of that year Brousson learnt that the Protestant church 
of his native city had been suppressed, and their temple 
given over to a society of female converters ; that the 
wives and daughters of the Protestants who refused to 
abjure their faith had been seized and imprisoned in 
nunneries and religious seminaries ; and that three 
hundred of their husbands and fathers were chained 
together and sent off in one day for confinement in the 
galleys at Marseilles. 

The number of Huguenots resorting to Switzerland 



44- 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



being so great,* and they often came so destitute, that 
a committee was formed at Lausanne to assist the 
emigrants, and facilitate their settlement in the canton, 
or enable them to proceed elsewhere. Brousson was 
from the first an energetic member of this committee. 
Part of their work was to visit the Protestant states of 
the north, and find out places to which the emigrants 
might be forwarded, as well as to collect subscriptions 
for their conveyance. 

In November 1685, a month after the Revocation, 
Brousson and La Porte set out for Berlin with this 
object. La Porte was one of the ministers of the 
Cevennes, who had fled before a sentence of death 
pronounced against him for having been concerned in 
"The Project." At Berlin they were received very 
cordially by the Elector of Brandenburg, who had 
already given great assistance to the Huguenot 
emigrants, and expressed himself as willing to do all 
that he could for their protection. Brousson and La 
Porte here met the Rev. David Ancillon, who had 
been for thirty- three years pastor at Metz,f and 

* Within about three weeks no fewer than seventeen thousand 
five hundred French emigrants passed into Lausanne. Two hundred 
Protestant ministers fled to Switzerland, the greater number of whom 
settled in Lausanne, until they could journey elsewhere. 

f Ancillon was an eminently learned man. His library was one 
of the choicest that had ever been collected, and on his expulsion 
from Metz it was pillaged by the Jesuits. Metz, now part of 
German Lorraine, was probably not so ferociously dragooned as 
other places. Yet the inhabitants were under the apprehension 
that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was about to be repeated upon 
them on Christmas Day, 1685, the soldiers of the garrison having 
been kept under arms all night. The Protestant churches were all 
pulled down, the ministers were expelled, and many of their people 
followed them into Germany. There were numerous Protestant 
soldiers in the Metz garrison, and the order of the King was that, 
like the rest of his subjects, they should become converted. Many 
of the officers resigned and entered the service of "William of Orange, 
and many of the soldiers deserted. The bribe offered for the con- 
version of privates was as follows : Common soldiers and dragoons, 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



was now pastor of the Elector at Berlin ; Gaultier, 
banished from Montpellier ; and Abbadie, banished 
from Saumur — all ministers of the Huguenot Church 
there ; with a large number of banished ministers and 
emigrant Protestants from all the provinces of France. 

The Elector suggested to Brousson that while at 
Berlin he should compose a summary account of the 
condition of the French Protestants, such as should 
excite the interest and evoke the help of the Protes- 
tant rulers and people of the northern States. This 
was done by Brousson, and the volume was published, 
entitled " Letters of the Protestants of France who 
have abandoned all for the cause of the Gospel, to 
other Protestants; with a particular Letter addressed 
to Protestant Kings, Electors, Rulers, and Magistrates." 
The Elector circulated this volume, accompanying it 
with a letter written in his name, to all the princes 
of the Continent professing the Augsburg Confession ; 
and it was thus mainly owing to the Elector's inter- 
cession that the Huguenots obtained the privilege of 
establishing congregations in several of the states of 
Germany, as well as in Sweden and Denmark. 

Brousson remained nearly five months at Berlin, 
after which he departed for Holland to note the progress 
of the emigration in that country, and there he met a 
large number of his countrymen. Nearly two hundred 
and fifty Huguenot ministers had taken refuge in 

two pistoles per head; troopers, three pistoles per head. The 
Protestants of Alsace were differently treated. They constituted a 
majority of the population ; Alsace and Strasburg having only 
recently been seized by Louis XIV. It was therefore necessary to 
be cautious in that quarter ; for violence would speedily have raised 
a revolution in the province which would have driven them over to 
Germany, whose language they spoke. Louvois could therefore only 
proceed by bribing ; and he was successful in buying over some of the 
most popular and influential men. 



4 6 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Holland ; there were many merchants and manufac- 
turers who had set up their branches of industry in the 
country ; and there were many soldiers who had entered 
the service of William of Orange. "While in Holland, 
Brousson resided principally with his brother, a banished 
Huguenot, who had settled at Amsterdam as a merchant. 

Having accomplished all that he could for his 
Huguenot brethren in exile, Brousson returned to Lau- 
sanne, where he continued his former labours. He 
bethought him very much of the Protestants still 
remaining in France, wandering like sheep without 
shepherds, deprived of guidance, books, and worship — 
the prey of ravenous wolves, — and it occurred to him 
whether the Protestant pastors had done right in 
leaving their flocks, even though by so doing they had 
secured the safety of their own lives. Accordingly, in 
1686, he wrote and published a " Letter to the Pastors 
of France at present in Protestant States, concerning 
the Desolation of their own Churches, and their own 
Exile." 

In this letter he says : — " If, instead of retiring before 
your persecutors, you had remained in the country ; if 
you had taken refuge in forests and caverns ; if you had 
gone from place to place, risking your lives to instruct and 
rally the people, until the first shock of the enemy was 
past ; and had you even courageously exposed yourselves 
to martyrdom — as in fact those have done who have 
endeavoured to perform your duties in your absence — 
perhaps the examples of constancy, or zeal, or of piety 
you had discovered, might have animated your flocks, 
revived their courage, and arrested the fury of your 
enemies. " He accordingly exhorted the Protestant 
ministers who had left France to return to their flocks 
at all hazards. 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



47 



This advice, if acted on, was virtually condemning the 
pastors to death. Brousson was not a pastor. Would 
he like to return to France at the daily risk of the rack 
and the gibbet ? The Protestant ministers in exile 
defended themselves. Benoit, then residing in Ger- 
many, replied in a " History and Apology for the Re- 
treat of the Pastors. " Another, who did not give his 
name, treated Brousson' s censure as that of a fanatic, 
who meddled with matters beyond his vocation. " You 
who condemn the pastors for not returning to France 
at the risk of their lives," said he, " why do you not first 
return to France yourself?" 

Brousson was as brave as his words. He was 
not a pastor, but he might return to the deserted 
flocks, and encourage and comfort them. He could no 
longer be happy in his exile at Lausanne. He heard by 
night the groans of the prisoners in the Tower of Con- 
stance, and the noise of the chains borne by the galley 
slaves at Toulon and Marseilles. He reproached him- 
self as if it were a crime with the repose which he 
enjoyed. Life became insupportable to him and he fell 
ill. His health was even despaired of ; but one day he 
suddenly rose up and said to his wife, " I must set out ; 
I will go to console, to relieve, to strengthen my brethren, 
groaning under their oppressions." 

His wife threw herself at his feet. " Thou wouldst 
go to certain death," she said; " think of me and thy 
little children." She implored him again and again 
to remain. He loved his wife and children, but he 
thought a higher duty called him away from them. 
When his friends told him that he would be taken 
prisoner and hung, he said, " When God permits his 
servants to die for the Gospel, they preach louder from 
the grave than they did during life." He remained 



4 s 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



unshaken. He would go to the help of the oppressed 
with the love of a brother, the faith of an apostle, and 
the courage of a martyr. 

Brousson knew the danger of the office he was about 
to undertake. There had, as we have seen, been nu- 
merous attempts made to gather the Protestant people 
together, and to administer consolation to them by 
public prayers and preaching. The persons who con- 
ducted these services were not regular pastors, but only 
private members of their former churches. Some of 
them were very young men, and they were nearly all 
uneducated as regards clerical instruction. One of the 
most successful was Isaac Vidal, a lame young man, a 
mechanic of Colognac, near St. Hypolite, in the Ceven- 
nes. His self-imposed ministrations were attended by 
large numbers of people. He preached for only six 
months and then died — a natural death, for nearly all 
who followed him were first tortured and then hung. 

We have already referred to Eulcran Hey, who 
preached for about nine months, and was then executed. 
In the same year were executed Meyrueis, by trade a 
woolcarder, and Hocher, who had been a reader in one 
of the Protestant churches. Emanuel Dalgues, a re- 
spectable inhabitant of Salle, in the Cevennes, also 
received the crown of martyrdom. Ever since the 
Revocation of the Edict, he had proclaimed the Grospel 
o'er hill and dale, in woods and caverns, to assemblies 
of the people wherever he could collect them. He was 
executed in 1687. Three other persons — Grransille, 
Mercier, and Esclopier — who devoted themselves to 
preaching, were transported as slaves to America ; and 
David Mazel, a boy twelve years of age, who had a 
wonderful memory, and preached sermons which he 
had learned by heart, was transported, with his father 



CLAUDE B ROUS SON. 



49 



and other frequenters of the assemblies, to the Carribee 
Islands. 

At length Brousson collected about him a number 
of Huguenots willing to return with him into France, 
in order to collect the Protestant people together again, 
to pray with them, and v even to preach to them if the 
opportunity occurred. Brousson's companions were 
these : Francis Yivens, formerly a schoolmaster in the 
Ceyennes ; Anthony Bertezene, a carpenter, brother of 
a preacher who had recently been condemned to death ; 
and seven other persons named Papus, La Pierre, Serein, 
Dombres, Poutant, Boisson, and M. de Bruc, an aged 
minister, who had been formerly pastor of one of the 
churches in the Cevennes. They prepared to enter 
France in four distinct companies, in the month of 
July, 1689. 



1 



CHAPTER IV. 



CLAUDE BR0USS0N, PASTOR AND MARTYR. 

"DROUSSOlSr left Lausanne on the 22nd of July, ac- 
companied by his dear friend, the Rev. M. de Bruc. 
The other members of the party had preceded them, 
crossing the frontier at different places. They all 
arrived in safetj^ at their destination, which was in the 
mountain district of the Cevennes. They resorted to 
the neighbourhood of the Aigoual, the centre of a very 
inaccessible region — wild, cold, but full of recesses for 
hiding and worship. It was also a district surrounded 
by villages, the inhabitants of which were for the most 
part Protestant. 

The party soon became diminished in number. The 
old pastor, De Bruc, found himself unequal to the 
fatigue and privations attending the work. He was 
ill and unable to travel, and was accordingly advised 
by his companions to quit the service and withdraw 
from the country. 

Persecution also destroyed some of them. "When it 
became known that assemblies for religious observances 
were again on foot, an increased force of soldiers was 
sent into the district, and a high price was set on the 
heads of all the preachers that could be apprehended. 
The soldiers scoured the country, and, helped by the 



CLAUDE B ROUS SON. 



5 



paid spies, they shortly succeeded in apprehending 
Boisson and Dombres, at St. Paul's, north of Anduze, 
in the Cevennes. They were both executed at Nismes, 
being first subjected to torture on the rack, by which 
their limbs were entirely dislocated. They were then 
conveyed to the place of execution, praying and singing 
psalms on the way, and finished their course with 
courage and joy. 

When Brousson first went into the Cevennes, he did 
not undertake to preach to the people. He was too 
modest to assume the position of a pastor ; he merely 
undertook, as occasion required, to read the Scriptures 
in Protestant families and in small companies, making 
his remarks and exhortations thereupon. He also 
transcribed portions of his own meditations on the 
Scriptures, and gave them away for distribution from 
hand to hand amongst the people. 

When it was found that his instructions were much 
appreciated, and that numbers of people assembled to 
hear him read and exhort, he was strongly urged to 
undertake the office of public instructor amongst them, 
especially as their ministers were being constantly 
diminished by execution. 

He had been about five months in the Cevennes, and 
was detained by a fall of snow on one of the mountains, 
where his abode was a sheepcote, when the proposal 
that he should become a preacher was first made to him. 
Vivens was one of those who most strongly supported 
the appeal made to Brousson. He spent many hours 
in private prayer, seeking the approval of God for the 
course he was about to undertake. Vivens also prayed 
in the several assemblies that Brousson might be con- 
firmed, and that God would be pleased to pour upon 
him his Holy Spirit, and strengthen him so that he 



52 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



might become a faithful and successful labourer in this 
great calling. 

Brousson at length consented, believing that duty and 
conscience alike called upon him to give the best of his 
help to the ojDpressed and persecuted Protestants of the 
mountains. " Brethren," he said to them, when they 
called upon him to administer to them the Holy Sacra- 
ment of the Eucharist — " Brethren, I look above you, 
and hear the most High God calling me through your 
mouths to this most responsible and sacred office ; and 
I dare not be disobedient to his heavenly call. By the 
grace of God I will comply with your pious desires ; 
dedicate and devote myself to the work of the ministry, 
and spend the remainder of my life in unwearied pains 
and endeavours for promoting God's glory, and the 
consolation of precious souls." 

Brousson received his call to the ministry in the 
Cevennes amidst the sound of musketry and grapeshot 
which spread death among the ranks of his brethren. 
He was continuously tracked by the spies of the Jesuits, 
who sought his apprehension and death; and he was 
hunted from place to place by the troops of the King, 
who followed him in his wanderings into the most wild 
and inaccessible places. 

The perilous character of his new profession was 
exhibited only a few days after his ordination, by the 
apprehension of Olivier Souverain at St. Jean de 
Gardonenque, for preaching the Gospel to the assem- 
blies. He was at once conducted to Montpellier and 
executed on the 15th of January, 1690. 

During the same year, Dumas, another preacher in 
the Cevennes, was apprehended and fastened by the 
troopers across a horse in order to be carried to Mont- 
pellier. His bowels were so injured and his body so 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



5 3 



crushed by this horrible method of conveyance, that 
Dumas died before he was half way to the customary 
place of martyrdom. 

Then followed the execution of David Quoite, a 
wandering and hunted pastor in the Cevennes for 
several years. He was broken on the wheel at Mont- 
pellier, and then hanged. "The punishment," said 
Louvreleuil, his tormentor, " which broke his bones, 
did not break his hardened heart : he died in his 
heresy." After Quoite, M. Bonnemere, a native of the 
same city, was also tortured and executed in like man- 
ner on the Peyrou. 

All these persons were taken, executed, destroyed, or 
imprisoned, during the first year that Brousson com- 
menced his perilous ministry in the Cevennes. 

About the same time three women, who had gone 
about instructing the families of the destitute Pro- 
testants, reading the Scriptures and praying with them, 
were apprehended by Baville, the King's intendant, 
and punished, l'sabeau Redothiere, eighteen years of 
age, and Marie Lintarde, about a year younger, both 
the daughters of peasants, were taken before Baville at 
Nismes. 

"What ! are you one of the preachers, forsooth ?" 
said he to Redothiere. " Sir," she replied, " I have 
exhorted my brethren to be mindful of their duty 
towards God, and when occasion offered, I have sought 
God in prayer for them; and, if your lordship calls 
that preaching, I have been a preacher." " But," said 
the Intendant, " you know that the King has forbidden 
this/'* " Yes, my lord," she replied, " I know it very 
well, but the King of kings, the God of heaven and 
earth, He hath commanded it."" " You deserve death," 
replied Baville. 



54 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



But the Intendant awarded her a severer fate. She 
was condemned to be imprisoned for life in the 
Tower of Constance, a place echoing with the groans 
of women, most of whom were in chains, perpetually 
imprisoned there for worshipping God according to 
conscience. 

Lintarde was in like manner condemned to imprison- 
ment for life in the castle of Sommieres, and it is 
believed she died there. Nothing, however, is known 
of the time when she died. "When a woman was taken 
and imprisoned in one of the King's torture-houses, she 
was given up by her friends as lost. 

A third woman, taken at the same time, was more 
mercifully dealt with. Anne Montjoye was found 
assisting at one of the secret assemblies. She was 
solicited in vain to abjure her faith, and being con- 
demned to death, was publicly executed. 

Shortly after his ordination, Brousson descended from 
the Upper Cevennes, where the hunt for Protestants 
was becoming very hot, into the adjacent valleys and 
plains. There it was necessary for him to be exceed- 
ingly cautious. The number of dragoons in Languedoc 
had been increased so as to enable them regularly to 
patrol the entire province, and a price had been set 
upon Brousson' s head, which was calculated to quicken 
their search for the flying pastor. 

Brousson was usually kept informed by his Hugue- 
not friends of the direction taken by the dragoons in 
their patrols, and hasty assemblies were summoned in 
their absence. The meetings were held in some secret 
place — some cavern or recess in the rocks. Often they 
were held at night, when a few lanterns were hung 
on the adjacent trees to give light. Sentinels were set 
in the neighbourhood, and all the adjoining roads were 



CLAUDE B ROUS SON. 



55 



watched. After the meeting was over the assemblage 
dispersed in different directions, and Bronsson immedi- 
ately left for another district, travelling mostly by 
night, so as to avoid detection. In this manner he 
usually presided at three or four assemblies each week, 
besides two on the Sabbath day — one early in the 
morning and another at night. 

At one of his meetings, held at Boucoiran on the 
Grardon, about half way between Msmes and Anduze, 
a Protestant nobleman — a nouveau convertis, who had 
abjured his religion to retain his estates — was present, 
and stood near the preacher during the service. One 
of the Government spies was present, and gave informa- 
tion. The name of the Protestant nobleman was not 
known. But the Intendant, to strike terror into others, 
seized six of the principal landed proprietors in the 
neighbourhood — though some of them had never 
attended any of the assemblies since the Revocation — 
and sent two of them to the galleys, and the four others 
to imprisonment for life at Lyons, besides confiscating 
the estates of the whole to the Crown. 

Brousson now felt that he was bringing his friends 
into very great trouble, and, out of consideration for 
them, he began to think of again leaving France. The 
dragoons were practising much cruelty on the Protestant 
population, being quartered in their houses, and at 
liberty to plunder and extort money to any extent. 
They were also incessantly on the look out for the 
assemblies, being often led by mounted priests and 
spies to places where they had been informed that 
meetings were about to be held. Their principal ob- 
ject, besides hanging the persons found attending, was 
to seize the preachers, more especially Brousson and 
Vivens, believing that the country would be more effec- 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



tually " converted," provided they could be seized and 
got out of the way. 

Brousson, knowing that he might be seized and taken 
prisoner at any moment, had long considered whether 
he ought to resist the attempts made to capture him. 
He had at first carried a sword, but at length ceased to 
wear it, being resolved entirely to cast himself on Pro- 
vidence ; and he also instructed all who resorted to his 
meetings to come to them unarmed. 

In this respect Brousson differed from Yivens, who 
thought it right to resist force by force ; and in the 
event of any attempt being made to capture him, he 
considered it expedient to be constantly provided with 
arms. Yet he had only once occasion to use them, and 
it was the first and last time. The reward of ten 
thousand livres being now offered for the apprehension 
of Brousson and Yivens, or five thousand for either, an 
active search was made throughout the province. At 
length the Government found themselves on the track 
of Yivens. One of his known followers, Yalderon, 
having been apprehended and put upon the rack, was 
driven by torture to reveal his place of concealment. 
A party of soldiers went in pursuit, and found Yivens 
with three other persons, concealed in a cave in the 
neighbourhood of Alais. 

Yivens was engaged in prayer when the soldiers 
came upon him. His hand was on his gun in a moment. 
"\Yhen asked to surrender he replied with a shot, not 
knowing the number of his opponents. He followed 
up with two other shots, killing a man each time, and 
then exposing himself, he was struck by a volley, and 
fell dead. The three other persons in the cave being 
in a position to hold the soldiers at defiance for some 
time, were promised their lives if they would sur- 



CLAUDE B ROUS SON. 



57 



render. They did so, and with the utter want of 
truth, loyalty, and manliness that characterized the 
persecutors, the promise was belied, and the three 
prisoners were hanged, a few days after, at Alais. 
Vivens' body was taken to the same place. The Inten- 
dant sat in j udgment upon it, and condemned it to be 
drawn through the streets upon a hurdle and then burnt 
to ashes. 

Brousson was becoming exhausted by the fatigues 
and privations he had encountered during his two 
years' wanderings and preachings in the Cevennes ; and 
he not only desired to give the people a relaxation 
from their persecution, but to give himself some abso- 
lutely necessary rest. He accordingly proceeded to 
JNTismes, his birthplace, where many people knew him ; 
and where, if they betrayed him, they might easily have 
earned five thousand livres. But so much faith was kept 
by the Protestants amongst one another, that Brous- 
son felt that his life was quite as safe amongst his 
townspeople as it had been during the last two years 
amongst the mountaineers of the Cevennes. 

It soon became known to the priests, and then to the 
Intendant, that Brousson was resident in concealment 
at Nismes; and' great efforts were accordingly made for 
his apprehension. During the search, a letter of Brous- 
son's was found in the possession of M. Gfuion, an aged 
minister, who had returned from Switzerland to resume 
his ministry, according as he might find it practicable. 
The result of this discovery was, that Guion was appre- 
hended, taken before the Intendant, condemned to be 
executed, and sent to Montpellier, where he gave up his 
life at seventy years old — the drums beating, as usual, 
that nobody might hear his last words. The house in 
which Guion had been taken at Nismes was ordered 



58 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



to be razed to the ground, in punishment of the owner 
who had given him shelter. 

After spending about a month at Nismes, Brousson 
was urged by his friends to quit the city. He accor- 
dingly succeeded in passing through the gates, and went 
to resume his former work. His first assembly was 
held in a commodious place on the Grardon, between 
Yalence, Brignon, and St. Haurice, about ten miles dis- 
tant from Nismes. Although he had requested that 
only the Protestants in the immediate neighbourhood 
should attend the meeting, so as not to excite the appre- 
hensions of the authorities, yet a multitude of persons 
came from Uzes and Nismes, augmented by accessions 
from upwards of thirty villages. The service was com- 
menced about ten o'clock, and was not completed until 
midnight. 

The concourse of persons from all quarters had been 
so great that the soldiers could not fail to be informed 
of it. Accordingly they rode towards the place of 
assemblage late at night, but they did not arrive 
until the meeting had been dissolved. One troop of 
soldiers took ambush in a wood through which the 
worshippers would return on their way back to Uzes. 
The command had been given to " draw blood from the 
conventicles. " On the approach of the people the 
soldiers fired, and killed and wounded several. About 
forty others were taken prisoners. The men were sent 
to the galleys for life, and the women were thrown 
into gaol at Carcassone — the Tower of Constance being 
then too full of prisoners. 

After this event, the Grovernment became more 
anxious in their desire to capture Brousson. They 
published far and wide their renewed offer of reward 
for his apprehension. They sent six fresh companies 



CLAUDE B ROUS SON. 



59 



of soldiers specially to track him, and examine the 
woods and search the caves between Uzes and Alais. 
But Brousson's friends took care to advise him of the 
approach of danger, and he sped away to take shelter 
in another quarter. The soldiers were, however, close 
upon his heels ; and one morning, in attempting to 
enter a village for the purpose of drying himself — 
having been exposed to the winter's rain and cold all 
night — he suddenly came upon a detachment of soldiers ! 
He avoided them by taking shelter in a thicket, and 
while there, he observed another detachment pass in 
file, close to where he was concealed. The soldiers were 
divided into four parties, and sent out to search in dif- 
ferent directions, one of them proceeding to search 
every house in the village into which Brousson had 
just been about to enter. 

The next assembly was held at Sommieres, about 
eight miles west of Msmes. The soldiers were too late 
to disperse the meeting, but they watched some of the 
people on their return. One of these, an old woman, 
who had been observed to leave the place, was shot on 
entering her cottage ; and the soldier, observing that 
she was attempting to rise, raised the butt end of his 
gun and brained her on the spot. 

The hunted pastors of the Cevennes were falling off 
one by one. Bernard Saint Paul, a young man, who 
had for some time exercised the office of preacher, was 
executed in 1692. One of the brothers Du Plans was 
executed in the same year, having been offered his life 
if he would conform to the Catholic religion. In the 
following year Paul Colognac was executed, after being 
broken to death on the wheel at Masselargais, near 
to which he had held his last assembly. His arms, 
thighs, legs, and feet were severally broken with the 



6o 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



iron bar some "hours before the coup de grace, or death- 
blow, was inflicted. Colognac endured bis sufferings 
with heroic fortitude. He was only twenty-four. He 
bad commenced, to preacb at twenty, and laboured at 
tbe work for only four years. 

Brousson's bealtb was fast giving way. Every place 
tbat be frequented was closely watched, so tbat he had 
often to spend the night under the hollow of a rock, or 
under the shelter of a wood, exposed to rain and snow, 
— and sometimes he had even to contend with a wolf 
for the shelter of a cave. Often he was almost perish- 
ing for want of food ; and often he found himself nearly 
ready to die for want of rest. And yet, even in the 
midst of his greatest perils, his constant thought was 
of the people committed to him, and for whose eternal 
happiness he continued to work. 

As he could not visit all who wished to hear him, be 
wrote out sermons that mio-ht be read to them. His 
friend Henry Poutant, one of those who originally 
accompanied him from Switzerland and had not yet 
been taken prisoner by the soldiers, went about hold- 
ing meetings for prayer, and reading to the people the 
sermons prepared for them by Brousson. 

For the purpose of writing out his sermons, Brous- 
son carried about with him a small board, which he 
called his " Wilderness Table.'-' With this placed 
upon his knees, he wrote the sermons, for the most 
part in woods and caves. He copied out seventeen of 
these sermons, which he sent to Louis XI V., to show 
him that what " he preached in the deserts contained 
nothing but the pure word of God, and that he only 
exhorted the people to obey God and to give glory to 
Him." 

The sermons were afterwards published at Am- 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



61 



sterdam, in 1695, under the title of "The Mystic 
Manna of the Desert." One would have expected 
that, under the bitter persecutions which Brousson had 
suffered during so many years, they would have been 
full of denunciation ; on the contrary, they were only 
full of love. His words were only burning when he 
censured his hearers for not remaining faithful to their 
Church and to their God. 

At length, the fury of Brousson' s enemies so in- 
creased, and his health was so much impaired, that he 
again thought of leaving France. His lungs were so 
much injured by constant exposure to cold, and his 
voice had become so much impaired, that he could not 
preach. He also heard that his family, whom he had 
left at Lausanne, required his assistance. His only son 
was growing up, and needed education. Perhaps Brous- 
son had too long neglected those of his own household ; 
though he had every confidence in the prudence and 
thoughtfulness of his wife. 

Accordingly, about the end of 1693, Brousson made 
arrangements for leaving the Cevennes. He set out in 
the beginning of December, and arrived at Lausanne 
about a fortnight later, having been engaged on his 
extraordinary mission of duty and peril for four years 
and five months. He was received like one rescued 
from the dead. His health was so injured, that his 
wife could scarcely recognise her husband in that wan, 
wasted, and weatherbeaten creature who stood before 
her. In fact, he was a perfect wreck. 

He remained about fifteen months in Switzerland, 
during which he preached in the Huguenots' church ; 
wrote out many of his pastoral letters and sermons ; 
and, when his health had become restored, he again 
proceeded on his travels into foreign countries. He 



62 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



first went into Holland. He had scarely arrived there, 
when intelligence reached him from Montpellier of the 
execution, after barbarous torments, of his friend Papus, 
— one of those who had accompanied him into the 
Cevennes to preach the Gospel some six years before. 
There were now very few of the original company left. 

On hearing of the martydom of Papus, Brousson, in 
a pastoral letter which he addressed to his followers, 
said : " He must have died some day ; and as he could 
not have prolonged his life beyond the term appointed, 
how could his end have been more happy and more 
glorious ? His constancy, his sweetness of temper, his 
patience, his humility, his faith, his hope, and his piety, 
affected even his judges and the false pastors who en- 
deavoured to seduce him, as also the soldiers and all 
that witnessed his execution. He could not have 
preached better than he did by his martyrdom ; and I 
doubt not that his death will produce abundance of 
fruit." 

While in Holland, Brousson took the opportunity of 
having his sermons and many of his pastoral letters 
printed at Amsterdam; after which he proceeded to 
make a visit to his banished Huguenot friends in 
England. He also wished to ascertain from personal 
inquiry the advisability of forwarding an increased 
number of French emigrants — then resident in Swit- 
zerland — for settlement in this country. In London, 
he met many of his friends from the South of France—- 
for there were settled there as ministers, Gfraverol 
of Msmes, Satur of Moutauban, four ministers from 
Montpellier for whom he had pleaded in the courts 
at Toulouse — the two Dubourdieus and the two Ber- 
thaus — fathers and sons. There were also La Coux 
from Castres, He Joux from Lyons, Eoussillon from 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



63 



Montredon, Mestayer from St. Quentin, all settled in 
London as ministers of Huguenot churches. 

After staying in England for only about a month, 
Brousson was suddenly recalled to Holland to assume 
the office to which he was appointed without solicita- 
tion, of preacher to the Walloon church at the Hague. 
Though his office was easy — for he had several col- 
leagues to assist him in the duties — and the salary was 
abundant for his purposes, while he was living in the 
society of his wife and family — Brousson nevertheless 
very soon began to be ill at ease. He still thought of 
the abandoned Huguenots "in the Desert" ; without 
teachers, without pastors, without spiritual help of 
any kind. When he had undertaken the work of the 
ministry, he had vowed that he would devote his time 
and talents to the support and help of the afflicted 
Church ; and now he was living at ease in a foreign 
country, far removed from those to whom he con- 
sidered his services belonged. These thoughts were 
constantly recurring and pressing upon his mind ; and 
at length he ceased to have any rest or satisfaction in 
his new position. 

Accordingly, after only about four months' connec- 
tion with the Church at the Hague, Brousson decided 
to relinquish the charge, and to devote himself to 
the service of the oppressed and afflicted members of 
his native Church in France. The Dutch Government, 
however, having been informed of his perilous and 
self-sacrificing intention, agreed to continue his salary 
as a pastor of the Walloon Church, and to pay it to 
his wife, who henceforth abode at the Hague. 

Brousson determined to enter France from the north, 
and to visit districts that were entirely new to him. 
For this purpose he put himself in charge of a guide. 



64 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



At that time, while the Protestants were flying from 
France, as they continued to do for many years, there 
were numerous persons who acted as guides for those 
not only flying from, but entering the country. Those 
who guided Protestant pas-tors on their concealed visits 
to France, were men of great zeal and courage — 
known to he faithful and self-denying — and thoroughly 
acquainted with the country. They knew all the woods, 
and fords, and caves, and places of natural shelter along 
the route. They made the itinerary of the mountains 
and precipices, of the byways and deserts, their study. 
They also knew of the dwellings of the faithful in the 
towns and villages where Huguenots might find relief 
and shelter for the night. They studied the disguises 
to be assumed, and were prepared with a stock of 
phrases and answers adapted for every class of inquiries. 

The guide employed by Brousson was one James 
Bruman — an old Huguenot merchant, banished at the 
Revocation, and now employed in escorting Huguenot 
preachers back to France, and escorting flying Hugue- 
not men, women, and children from it.* The pastor 
and his guide started about the end of August, 1695. 
They proceeded by way of Liege ; and travelling south, 
they crossed the forest of Ardennes, and entered France 
near Sedan. 

Sedan, recently the scene of one of the greatest 
calamities that has ever befallen France, was, about 
two centuries ago, a very prosperous place. It was the 
seat of a great amount of Protestant learning and Pro- 
testant industry. One of the four principal Huguenot 
academies of France was situated in that town. It was 

* Many of these extraordinary escapes are given in the author's 
" Huguenots : their Settlements, Churches, and Industries, in Eng- 
land and Ireland." 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



65 



suppressed in 1681, shortly before the Revocation, and 
its professors, Bayle, Abbadie, Basnage, Brazy, and 
Jurieu, expelled the country. The academy build- 
ings themselves had been given over to the Jesuits — the 
sworn enemies of the Huguenots. 

At the same time, Sedan had been the seat of great 
woollen manufactures, originally founded by Flemish 
Protestant families, and for the manufacture of arms, 
implements of husbandry, and all kinds of steel and 
iron articles.* At the Revocation, the Protestants 
packed up their tools and property, suddenly escaped 
across the frontier, near which they were, and went 
and established themselves in the Low Countries, where 
they might pursue their industries in safety. Sedan 
was ruined, and remained so until our own day, when 
it has begun to experience a little prosperity from the 
tourists desirous of seeing the place where the great 
French Army surrendered. 

When Brousson visited the place, the remaining 
Protestants resided chiefly in the suburban villages of 
Givonne and Daigny. He visited them in their fami- 
lies, and also held several private meetings, after which 
he was induced to preach in a secluded place near Sedan 
at night. 

This assembly, however, was reported to the autho- 
rities, who immediately proceeded to make search for 
the heretic preacher. A party of soldiers, informed by 
the spies, next morning invested the house in which 
Brousson slept. They first apprehended Bruman, the 
guide, and thought that in him they had secured the 

* There were from eighty to ninety estahlishments for the manu- 
facture of broadcloth in Sedan, giving employment to more than 
two thousand persons. These, together with the iron and steel 
manufactures, were entirely ruined at the Revocation, when the 
whole of the Protestant mechanics went into exile, and settled for the 
most part in Holland and England. 

F 



66 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



pastor. They next rummaged the house, in order to 
rind the preacher's hooks. But Bronsson, hearing them 
corning in, hid hiniself behind the door, which, being 
small, hardly concealed his person. 

After setting a guard all round the house, ransack- 
ing every room in it, and turning everything upside 
down, they left it ; but two of the children, seeing 
Brousson's feet under the door, one of them ran after 
the officer of the party, and exclaimed to him, pointing 
back, "Here, sir, here!" But the officer, not under- 
standing vrhat the child meant, went away with his 
soldiers, and Bronsson' s life was, for the time, saved. 

The same evening, Bronsson changed his disguise to 
that of a wool-comber, and carrying a parcel on his 
shoulder, he set out on the same evening with another 
guide. He visited many places in which Protestants 
were to be found — in Champagne, Picardy, Xormandy, 
JSevernois, and Burgundy. He also visited several of 
his Mends in the neighbourhood of Paris. 

We have not many details of his perils and experi- 
ences during his journey. But the following passage 
is extracted from a letter addressed by him to a friend 
in Holland : " I assure you that in every place through 
which I passed, I witnessed the poor people truly 
repenting their fault {i.e. of having gone to Mass), 
weeping day and night, and imploring the grace and 
consolations of the Grospel in their distress. Their 
persecutors daily oppress them, and burden them with 
taxes and imposts ; but the more discerning of the 
Ponian Catholics acknowledge that the cruelties and 
injustice done towards so many innocent persons, draw 
down misery and distress upon the kingdom. And 
truly it is to be apprehended that God will abandon its 
inhabitants to their wickedness, that he may afterwards 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



67 



pour down his most terrible judgments upon that 
ungrateful and vaunting country, which has rejected 
his truth and despised the day of visitation." 

During the twelve months that Brousson was occupied 
with his perilous journey through France, two more of 
his friends in the Cevennes suffered martyrdom — La 
Porte on the 7th of February, 1696, and Henri Gruerin 
on the 22nd of June following. Both were broken 
alive on the wheel before receiving the coup de grace. 

Towards the close of the year, Brousson arrived at 
Basle, from whence he proceeded to visit his friends 
throughout the cantons of Switzerland, and then he 
returned to Holland by way of the Rhine, to rejoin his 
family at the Hague. 

At that time, the representatives of the Allies were 
meeting at Byswick the representatives of Louis XIV., 
who was desirous of peace. Brousson and the French 
refugee ministers resident in Holland endeavoured to 
bring the persecutions of the French Protestants under 
the notice of the Conference. But Louis XIV. would 
not brook this interference. He proposed going 011 
dealing with the heretics in his own way. "I do not 
pretend," he said, " to prescribe to "William III. rules 
about his subjects, and I expect the same liberty as 
to my own." 

Finding it impossible to obtain redress for his fellow- 
countrymen under the treaty of Byswick, which was 
shortly after concluded, Brousson at length prepared to 
make his third journey into France in the month of 
August 1697. He set out greatly to the regret of his 
wife, who feared it might be his last journey, as indeed 
it proved to be. In a letter which he wrote to console 
her, from some remote place where he was snowed up 
about the middle of the^following December, he said : 



63 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



" 1 cannot at present enter into the details of the work 
the Lord has given me grace to labour in ; but it is the 
source of much consolation to a large number of his 
poor people. It will be expedient that you do not 
mention where I am, lest I should be traced. It may 
be that I cannot for some time write to you ; but I 
walk under the conduct of my God, and I repeat that I 
would not for millions of money that the Lord should 
refuse me the grace which renders it imperative for me 
to labour as I now do in His work."* 

When the snow had melted sufficiently to enable 
Brousson to escape from the district of Dauphiny, 
near the High Alps, where he had been concealed, 
he made his way across the country to the Yiverais, 
where he laboured for some time. Here he heard of 
the martyrdom of the third of the brothers Du Plans, 
broken on the wheel and executed like the others on 
the Peyrou at Montpellier. 

During the next nine months, Brousson laboured in 
the north-eastern provinces of Languedoc (more par- 
ticularly in the Cevennes and Yiverais), Orange, and 
Dauphiny. He excited so much interest amongst the 
Protestants, who resorted from a great distance to 
attend his assemblies, that the spies (who were usually 
pretended Protestants) soon knew of his presence in 
the neighbourhood, and information was at once for- 
warded to the Intendant or his officers. 

Persecution was growing very bitter about this time. 
By orders of the bishops the Protestants were led by 
force to Mass before the dragoons with drawn swords, 
and the shops of merchants who refused to go to Mass 

* The following was the portraiture of Brousson, issued to the 
spies and police : " Brousson is of middle stature, and rather spare, 
aged forty to forty-two, nose large, complexion dark, hair black, 
hands well formed." 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



69 



regularly were ordered to be closed. Their houses were 
also filled with soldiers. " The soldiers or militia/' 
said Brousson to a friend in Holland, "frequently 
commit horrible ravages, breaking open the cabinets, 
removing every article that is saleable, which are often 
purchased by the priests at insignificant prices; the 
rest they burn and break up, after which the soldiers 
are removed ; and when the sufferers think themselves 
restored to peace, fresh billets are ordered upon them. 
Many are consequently induced to go to Mass with 
weeping and lamentation, but a great number remain 
inflexible, and others fly the kingdom." 

When it became known that Brousson, in the course 
of his journey ings, had arrived, about the end of August, 
1698, in the neighbourhood of JSTismes,* Baville was 
greatly mortified ; and he at once offered a reward of six 
hundred louis d'or for his head. Brousson nevertheless 
entered Nismes, and found refuge amongst his friends. 
He had, however, the imprudence to post there a 
petition to the King, signed by his own hand, which 
had the effect of at once setting the spies upon his 
track. Leaving the city itself, he took refuge in a 
house not far from it, whither the spies contrived to 
trace him, and gave the requisite information to the 
Intendant. The house was soon after surrounded 
by soldiers, and was itself entered and completely 
searched. 

Brousson's host had only had time to make him descend 
into a well, which had a niche in the bottom in which 
he could conceal himself. The soldiers looked down the 
well a dozen times, but could see nothing. Brousson 
was not in the house ; he was not in the chimneys ; 
he was not in the outhouses. He must be in the well ! 
A soldier went down the well to make a personal 



7 o THE HUGUENOTS. 

examination. He was let down close to the sur- 
face of the water, and felt all about. There was 
nothing ! Feeling awfully cold, and wishing to„ be 
taken out, he called to his friends, " There is nothing 
here, pull me up." He was pulled up accordingly, 
and Brousson was again saved. 

The country about Xismes being beset with spies to 
track the Protestants and prevent their meetings, 
Brousson determined to go westward and visit the 
scattered people inRouerge, Pays de Foix, and Bigorre, 
proceeding as far as Beam, where a remnant of 
Huguenots still lingered, notwithstanding the repeated 
dragooning to which the district had been subjected. It 
was at Oberon that he fell into the hands of a spy, who 
bore the same name as a Protestant friend to whom his 
letter was addressed. Information was given to the 
authorities, and Brousson was arrested. He made no 
resistance, and answered at once to his name. 

TThen the Judas who had betrayed him went to 31. 
Penon, the intendant of the province, to demand the 
reward set upon Brousson' s head, the Intendant replied 
with indignation, ""Wretch! don't you blush to look 
upon the man in whose blood you traffic ? Begone ! I 
cannot bear your presence ! " 

Brousson was sent to Pau, where he was imprisoned 
in the castle of Foix, at one time the centre of the 
Reformation movement in the South of France — where 
Calvin had preached, where Jeanne d'Albret had lived, 
and where Henry IV. had been born. 

From Pau, Brousson was sent to Hontpellier, 
escorted by dragoons. At Toulouse the party took 
passage by the canal of Languedoc, which had then 
been shortly open. At Somail, during the night, 
Brousson saw that all the soldiers were asleep. He 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



V 



bad but to step on shore to regain his liberty; but 
he had promised to the Intendant of Bearn, who had 
allowed him to go unfettered, that he would not 
attempt to escape. At Agade there was a detachment 
of a hundred soldiers, ready to convey the prisoner 
to Baville, Intendant of Languedoc. He was im- 
prisoned in the citadel of Montpellier, on the 30th 
October, 1698. 

Baville, who knew much of the character of Brous- 
son — his peacefulness, his piety, his self-sacrifice, and 
his noble magnanimity — is said to have observed on 
one occasion, " I would not for a world have to judge 
that man." And yet the time had now arrived when 
Brousson was to be judged and condemned by Baville 
and the Presidial Court. The trial was a farce, 
because it had been predetermined that Brousson 
should die. He was charged with preaching in 
France contrary to the King's prohibition. This he 
admitted ; but when asked to whom he had administered 
the Sacrament, he positively refused to disclose, because 
he was neither a traitor nor informer to accuse his 
brethren. He was also charged with having conspired 
to introduce a foreign army into France under the com- 
mand of Marshal Schomberg. This he declared to 
be absolutely false, for he had throughout his career 
been a man of peace, and sought to bring back Christ's 
followers by peaceful means only. 

His defence was of no avail. He was condemned to 
be racked, then to be broken on the wheel, and after- 
wards to be executed. He received the sentence 
without a shudder. He was tied on the rack, but when 
he refused to accuse his brethren he was released from 
it. Attempts were made by several priests and friars 
to add him to the number of " new converts," but these 



7 2 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



were altogetlier fruitless. All that remained was to 
execute him finally on the public place of execution — 
the Peyrou. 

The Peyrou is the pride of modern lEontpellier. It 
is the favourite promenade of the place, and is one of 
the finest in Europe. It consists of a broad platform 
elevated high above the rest of the town, and command- 
ing extensive views of the surrounding country. In 
clear weather, Mont Yentoux, one of the Alpine sum- 
mits, may be seen across the broad valley of the Phone 
on the east, and the peak of Mont Canizou in the 
Pyrenees on the west. Northward stretches the moun- 
tain range of the Cevennes, the bold Pic de Saint- Loup 
the advanced sentinel of the group ; while in the 
south the prospect is bounded by the blue line of the 
Mediterranean. 

The Peyrou is now pleasantly laid out in terraced 
walks and shady groves, with gay parterres of flowers 
— the upper platform being surrounded with a handsome 
stone balustrade. An equestrian statue of Louis XIY. 
occupies the centre of the area ; and a triumphal arch 
stands at the entrance to the promenade, erected to 
commemorate the " glories " of the same monarch, more 
particularly the Revocation by him of the Edict of 
Xantes — one of the entablatures of the arch displaying 
a hideous figure, intended to represent a Huguenot, 
Iving trampled under foot of the " Most Christian 

The Peyrou was thus laid out and ornamented in 
the reign of his successor, Louis XV., " the "Well- 
beloved," during which the same policy for which 
Louis XIY. was here glorified by an equestrian statue 
and a triumphal arch continued to be persevered, in — 
of imprisoning, banishing, hanging, or sending to the 



CLAUDE BROUSSON. 



73 



galleys such of the citizens of France as were not of 
" the King's religion.'' 

But during the reign of Louis XIY. himself, the 
Peyrou was anything but a pleasure-ground. It was 
the infamous place of the city — the place de Greve — a 
desert, barren, blasted table-land, where sometimes 
half-a-dozen decaying corpses might be seen swinging 
from the gibbets on which they had been hung. It 
was specially reserved, because of its infamy, for the 
execution of heretics against Rome ; and here, accord- 
ingly, hundreds of Huguenot martyrs — whom power, 
honour, and wealth failed to bribe or to convert 
— were called upon to seal their faith with their 
blood. 

Brousson was executed at this ^place on the 4th of 
November, 1698. It was towards evening, while the 
sun was slowly sinking behind the western mountains, 
that an immense multitude assembled on the Peyrou to 
witness the martyrdom of the devoted pastor. Not 
fewer than twenty thousand persons were there, includ- 
ing the principal nobility of the city and province, 
besides many inhabitants of the adjoining mountain 
district of the Cevennes, some of whom had come from 
a great distance to be present. In the centre of the 
plateau, near where the equestrian statue of the great 
King now stands, was a scaffold, strongly surrounded 
by troops to keep off the crowd. Two battalions, drawn 
up in two lines facing each other, formed an avenue of 
bayonets between the citadel, near at hand, and the 
place of execution. 

A commotion stirred the throng ; and the object of 
the breathless interest excited shortly appeared in the 
person of a middle-sized, middle-aged man, spare, grave, 
and dignified in appearance, dressed in the ordinary 



74 THE HUGUENOTS. 

garb of a pastor, who walked slowly towards the scaffold, 
engaged in earnest prayer, his eyes and hands lifted 
towards heaven. On mounting the platform, he stood 
forward to say a few last words to the people, and give 
to many of his friends, whom he knew to be in- the 
crowd, his parting benediction. But his voice was 
instantly stifled by the roll of twenty drums, which 
continued to beat a quick march until the hideous 
ceremony was over, and the martyr, Claude Brousson, 
had ceased to live.* 

Strange are the vicissitudes of human affairs ! Not 
a hundred years passed after this event, before the 
great grandson of the monarch, at whose instance 
Brousson had laid down his life, appeared upon a 
scaffold in the Place Louis XIY. in Paris, and implored 
permission to say his few last words to the people. In 
vain ! His voice was drowned by the drums of San- 
terre ! 

* The only favour which Brousson's judges showed him at death 
was as regarded the manner of carrying his sentence into execution. 
He was condemned to be broken alive on the wheel, and then 
strangled ; whereas by special favour the sentence was commuted 
into strangulation first and the breaking of his bones afterwards. 
So that while Brousson's impassive body remained with his per- 
secutors to be broken, his pure unconquered spirit mounted in 
triumph towards heaven. 



CHAPTER V. 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 

A LTHOUGH tlie arbitrary measures of the King were 
felt all oyer France, they nowhere excited more 
dismay and consternation than in the province of Lan- 
guedoc. This province had always been inhabited by a 
spirited and energetic people, born lovers of liberty. 
They were among the earliest to call in question the 
despotic authority over mind and conscience claimed by 
the see of Rome. The country is sown with the ashes 
of martyrs. Long before the execution of Brousson, 
the Peyrou at Montpellier had been the Calvary of the 
South of France. 

As early as the twelfth century, the Albigenses, 
who inhabited the district, excited the wrath of the 
Popes. Simple, sincere believers in the Divine pro- 
vidence, they rejected Pome, and took their stand upon 
the individual responsibility of man to Grod. Count de 
Foix said to the legate of Innocent III. : " As to my 
religion, the Pope has nothing to do with it. Every 
man's conscience must be free. My father has always 
recommended to me this liberty, and I am content to 
die for it." 

A crusade was waged against the Albigenses, which 
lasted for a period of about sixty years. Armies were 



76 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



concentrated upon Languedoc, and after great slaughter 
the heretics were supposed to be exterminated. 

But enough of the people survived to perpetuate the 
love of liberty in their descendants, who continued to 
exercise a degree of independence in matters of religion 
and politics almost unknown in other parts of France. 
Languedoc was the principal stronghold of the Hugue- 
nots in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; and 
when, in 1685, Louis XI Y. revoked the Edict of 
Nantes, which interdicted freedom of worship under 
penalty of confiscation, banishment, and death, it is not 
surprising that such a policy should have occasioned 
widespread consternation, if not hostility and open 
resistance. 

At the period of the Revocation there were, accord- 
ing to the Intendant of the province, not fewer than 
250,000 Protestants in Languedoc, and these formed 
the most skilled, industrious, enterprising, and wealthy 
portion of the community. They were the best farmers, 
vine-dressers, manufacturers, and traders. The valley 
of Vaunage, lying to the westward of Xismes, was one 
of the richest and most highly cultivated parts of France. 
It contained more than sixty temples, its population 
being almost exclusively Protestant ; and it was known 
as " The Little Canaan," abounding as it did in corn, 
and wine, and oil. 

The greater part of the commerce of the South of 
France was conducted by the Protestant merchants of 
Is"ismes, of whom the Intendant wrote to the King in 
1699, " If they are still bad Catholics, at any rate they 
have not ceased to be very good traders." 

The Marquis d'Aguesseau bore similar testimony to 
the intelligent industry of the Huguenot population. 
" By an unfortunate fatality," said he, " in nearly every 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



kind of art the most skilful workmen, as well as the 
richest merchants, belong to the pretended reformed 
religion." 

The Marquis, who governed Languedoc for many 
years, was further of opinion that the intelligence of 
the Protestants was in a great measure due to the in- 
structions of their pastors. "It is certain/' said he, 
" that one of the things which holds the Huguenots to 
their religion is the amount of information which they 
receive from their instructors, and which it is not 
thought necessary to give in ours. The Huguenots 
will be instructed, and it is a general complaint 
amongst the new converts not to find in our religion 
the same mental and moral discipline they find in their 
own." 

Baville, the intendant, made an observation to a 
similar effect in a confidential communication which he 
made to the authorities at Paris in 1697, in which he 
boasted that the Protestants had now all been con- 
verted, and that there were 198,483 new converts in 
Languedoc. " Generally speaking," he said, " the new 
converts are much better off, being more laborious and 
industrious than the old Catholics of the province. 
The new converts must not be regarded as Catholics ; 
they almost all preserve in their heart their attach- 
ment to their former religion. They may confess and 
communicate as much as you will, because they are 
menaced and forced to do so by the secular power. 
But this only leads to sacrilege. To gain them, their 
hearts must be won. It is there that religion resides, 
and it can only be solely established by effecting that 
conquest." 

From the number, as well as the wealth and educa- 
tion, of the Protestants of Languedoc, it is reasonable 



78 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



to suppose that the emigration from this quarter of 
France should have been very considerable during the 
persecutions which followed the Revocation. Of course 
nearly all the pastors fled, death being their punish- 
ment if they remained in France. Hence many of the 
most celebrated French preachers in Holland, Germany, 
and England were pastors banished from Languedoc. 
Claude and Saurin both belonged to the province ; and 
among the London preachers were the Dubourdieus, 
the Bertheaus, Graverol, and Pegorier. 

It is also interesting to find how many of the distin- 
guished Huguenots who settled in England came from 
Languedoc. The Romillys and Layards came from Mont- 
pellier ; the Saurins from Nismes ; the Graussens from 
Lunel ; and the Bosanquets from Caila ; * besides the 
Auriols, Arnauds, Pechels, De Beauvoirs, Durands, 
Portals, Boileaus, D'Albiacs, D'Oliers, Pious, and Vig- 
noles, all of whom belonged to the Huguenot landed 
gentry of Languedoc, who fled and sacrificed everything 
rather than conform to the religion of Louis XIV, 

When Brousson was executed at Montpellier, it was 
believed that Protestantism was finally dead. At all 
events, it was supposed that those of the Protestants who 
remained, without becoming converted, were at length 
reduced to utter powerlessness. It was not believed 
that the smouldering ashes contained any sparks that 
might yet be fanned into flames. The Huguenot 
landed proprietors, the principal manufacturers, the 
best of the artisans, had left for other countries. Pro- 
testantism was now entirely without leaders. The 

* There are still Gaussens at St. Mamert, in the department of 
Gard; and some of the Bosanquet family must have remained on their 
estates or returned to Protestantism, as we find a Bosanquet of Caila 
broken alive at Nismes, because of his religion, on the 7th. September, 
1702, after which his corpse was publicly exposed on the Montpellier 
high road. 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



very existence of Protestantism in any form was denied 
by the law ; and it might perhaps reasonably have been 
expected that, being thus crushed out of sight, it would 
die. 

But there still remained another important and vital 
element — the common people — the peasants, the small 
farmers, the artisans, and labouring classes — persons of 
slender means, for the most part too poor to emigrate, 
and who remained, as it were, rooted to the soil on 
which they had been born. This was especially the 
case in the Cevennes, where, in many of the communes, 
almost the entire inhabitants were Protestants ; in 
others, they formed a large proportion of the popula- 
tion ; while in all the larger towns and villages they 
were very numerous, as well as widely spread over the 
whole province. 

The mountainous district of the Cevennes is the most 
rugged, broken, and elevated region in the South of 
France. It fills the department of Lozere, as well as 
the greater part of Gard and Herault. The principal 
mountain- chain, about a hundred leagues in length, runs 
from north-east to south-west, and may almost be said 
to unite the Alps with the Pyrenees. From the centre 
of France the surface rises with a gradual slope, forming 
an inclined plane, which reaches its greatest height in 
the Cevennic chain, several of the summits of which 
are about five thousand five hundred feet above the sea 
level. Its connection with the Alpine range is, how- 
ever, broken abruptly by the deep valley of the Rhone, 
running nearly due north and south. 

The whole of this mountain district may be regarded 
as a triangular plateau rising gradually from the north- 
west, and tilted up at its south-eastern angle. It is 



So 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



composed for the most part of granite, overlapped by 
strata belonging to the Jurassic-system ; and in many 
places, especially in Auvergne, the granitic rocks have 
been burst through by volcanoes, long since extinct, 
which rise like enormous protuberances from the 
higher parts of the platform. Towards the southern 
border of the district, the limestone strata overlapping 
the granite assume a remarkable development, exhibit- 
ing a series of flat-topped hills bounded by perpen- 
dicular cliffs some six or eight hundred feet high. 

" These plateaux," says Mr. Scrope, in his interest- 
ing account of the geology of Central France, " are 
called ( causses ' in the provincial dialect, and they have 
a singularly dreary and desert aspect from the monotony 
of their form and their barren and rocky character. 
The valleys which separate them are rarely of con- 
siderable width. Winding, narrow, and all but im- 
passable clift-like glens predominate, giving to the 
Cevennes that peculiarly intricate character which en- 
abled its Protestant inhabitants, in the beginning of 
the last century, to offer so stubborn and gallant a re- 
sistance to the atrocious persecutions of Louis XI V." 

Such being the character of this mountain district — 
rocky, elevated, and sterile — the people inhabiting it, 
though exceedingly industrious, are for the most very 
poor. Sheep-farming is the principal occupation of the 
people of the hill country ; and in the summer season, 
when the lower districts are parched with drought, tens 
of thousands of sheep may be seen covering the roads 
leading to the Upper Cevennes, whither they are driven 
for pasture. There is a comparatively small breadth 
of arable land in the district. The mountains in many 
places contain only soil enough to grow juniper-bushes. 
There is very little verdure to relieve the eye — few 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



Si 



turf-clad slopes or earth -covered ledges to repay the 
tillage of the farmer. Even the mountains of lower 
elevation are for the most part stony deserts. Chest- 
nut-trees, it is true, grow luxuriantly in the sheltered 
places, and occasionally scanty crops of rye on the 
lower mountain- sides. Mulberry-trees also thrive in 
the valleys, their leaves being used for the feeding of 
silkworms, the rearing of which forms one of the prin- 
cipal industries of the district. 

Even in the immediate neighbourhood of ISTisines — a 
rich and beautiful town, abounding in Roman remains, 
which exhibit ample evidences of its ancient grandeur 
— the country is arid, stony, and barren-looking, though 
here the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree, wherever 
there is soil enough, grow luxuriantly in the open air. 
Indeed, the country very much resembles in its charac- 
ter the land of Judea, being rocky, parched, and in 
many places waste, though in others abounding in corn 
and wine and oil. In the interior parts of the district 
the scenery is wild and grand, especially in the valleys 
lying under the lofty mountain of Lozere. But the 
rocks and stones are everywhere in the ascendant. 

A few years ago we visited the district ; and while 
proceeding in the old-fashioned diligence which runs 
between Alais and Florae — for the district is altogether 
beyond the reach of railways — a French contractor, 
accompanying a band of Italian miners, whom he was 
taking into the mountains to search for minerals, point- 
ing to the sterile rocks, exclaimed to us, " Messieurs, 
behold the very poorest district in France ! It con- 
tains nothing but juniper-bushes ! As for its agricul- 
ture, it produces nothing ; manufactures, nothing ; 
commerce, nothing ! Rien, rien, rien !" 

The observation of this French entrepreneur reminds 



82 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



us of an anecdote that Telford, the Scotch engineer, used 
to relate of a countryman with reference to his appre- 
ciation of Scotch mountain beauty. An English artist, 
enraptured by the scenery of Ben MacDhui, was ex- 
patiating on its magnificence, and appealed to the 
native guide for confirmation of his news. " I dinna 
ken aboot the scenery/' replied the man, " but there's 
plenty o' big rocks and stanes ; an' the kintra's awfu' 
puir." The same observation might doubtless apply to 
- the Cevennes. Yet, though the people may be poor, 
they are not miserable or destitute, for they are all 
well-clad and respectable-looking peasants, and there 
is not a beggar to be seen in the district. 

But the one country, as the other, grows strong and 
brave men. These barren mountain districts of the 
Cevennes have bred a race of heroes ; and the men are 
as simple and kind as they are brave. Hospitality is a 
characteristic of the people, which never fails to strike 
the visitor accustomed to the exactions which are so 
common along the hackneyed tourist routes. 

As in other parts of France, the peasantry here are 
laborious almost to excess. Robust and hardy, they 
are distinguished for their perseverance against the 
obstacles which nature constantly opposes to them. 
Out-door industry being suspended in winter, during 
which they are shut up in their cabins for nearly six 
months by the ice and snow, they occupy themselves 
in preparing their wool for manufacture into cloth. 
The women card, the children spin, the men weave ; and 
each cottage is a little manufactory of drugget and 
serge, which is taken to market in spring, and sold in 
the low-country towns. Such was the industry of the 
Cevennes nearly two hundred years since, and such it 
remains to the present day. 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



83 



The people are of a contented nature, and bear their 
poverty with, cheerfulness and even dignity. While 
they partake of the ardour and strong temper which 
characterize the inhabitants of the South of France, 
they are probably, on the whole, more grave and staid 
than Frenchmen generally, and are thought to be more 
urbane and intelligent ; and though they are un- 
manageable by force, they are remarkably accessible to 
kindess and moral suasion. 

uch, in a few words, are the more prominent charac- 
teristics of the country and people of the Cevennes. 

When the popular worship of the mountain district 
of Languedoc — in which the Protestants constituted the 
majority of the population — was suppressed, great dis- 
may fell upon the people ; but they made no signs of 
resistance to the royal authority. For a time they re- 
mained comparatively passive, and it was at first 
thought they were indifferent. Their astonished 
enemies derisively spoke of them as displaying "the 
patience of a Huguenot," — the words having passed 
into a proverb. 

But their persecutors did not know the stuff of which 
these mountaineers were made. They had seen their 
temples demolished one after another, and their pastors 
banished, leaving them " like poor starved sheep look- 
ing for the pasture of life." Next they heard that such 
of their pastors as had been apprehended for venturing 
to minister to them in " the Desert" had been taken to 
Nismes and Montpellier and hanged. Then they began 
to feel excited and indignant. For they could not 
shake off their own belief and embrace another man's, 
even though that man was their king. If Louis XIV. 
had ordered them to believe that two and two make 



84 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



six, they could not possibly believe, though they might 
pretend to do so, that it made any other number than 
four. And so it was with the King's order to them to 
profess a faith which they could not bring their minds 
to believe in. 

These poor people entertained the conviction that 
they possessed certain paramount rights as men. Of 
these they held the right of conscience to be one of the 
principal. They were willing to give unto CaGsar the 
things that were Caesar's ; but they could not give him 
those which belonged unto God. And if they were 
forced to make a choice, then they must rather disobey 
their King than the King of kings. 

Though deprived of their leaders and pastors, the 
dispossessed Huguenots emerged by degrees from their 
obscurity, and began to recognise each other openly. 
If their temples were destroyed, there remained the 
woods and fields and mountain pastures, where they 
might still meet and worship God, even though it were 
in defiance of the law. Having taken counsel together, 
they resolved " not to forsake the assembling of them- 
selves together ; " and they proceeded, in all the Pro- 
testant districts in the South of France — in Yiverais, 
Dauphiny, and the Cevennes — to hold meetings of the 
people, mostly by night, for worship — in woods, in 
caves, in rocky gorges, and in hollows of the hills. 
Then began those famous assemblies of "the Desert," 
which were the nightmare of Louvois and the horror of 
Louis XIY. 

When it came to the knowledge of the authorities 
that such meetings were being held, large bodies of 
troops were sent into the southern provinces, with orders 
to disperse them and apprehend the ringleaders. These 
orders were carried out with much barbarity. Amongst 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



35 



various assemblies which were discovered and attacked 
in the Cevennes, were those of Auduze and Yigan, 
where the soldiers fell upon the defenceless people, put 
the greater number to the sword, and hanged upon the 
nearest trees those who did not succeed in making their 
escape. 

The authorities waited to see the effect of these 
" vigorous measures ; " but they were egregiously dis- 
appointed. The meetings in the Desert went on as 
before, and even increased in number. Then milder 
means were tried. Other meetings were attacked in 
like manner, and the people found attending them taken 
prisoners. They were then threatened with death 
unless they became converted, and promised to attend 
Mass. They declared that they preferred death. A 
passion for martyrdom even seemed to be spreading 
amongst the infatuated people ! 

Then the peasantry began secretly to take up arms 
for their defence. They had thus far been passive in 
their resistance, and were content to brave death pro- 
vided they could but worship together. At length they 
felt themselves driven in their despair to resist force by 
force — acting, however, in the first place, entirely on 
the defensive — " leaving the issue," to use the words 
of one of their solemn declarations, " to the providence 
of God." 

They began — these poor labourers, herdsmen, and 
woolcarders — by instituting a common fund for tho 
purpose of helping their distressed brethren in sur- 
rounding districts. They then invited such as were 
disposed to join them to form themselves into companies, 
so as to be prepared to come together and give their 
assistance as occasion required. "When meetings in 
the Desert were held, it became the duty of these en- 



86 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



rolled men to post themselves as sentinels on the sur- 
rounding heights, and give notice of the approach of 
their enemies. They also constituted a sort of voluntary 
police for their respective districts, taking notice of the 
changes of the royal troops, and dispatching informa- 
tion by trusty emissaries, intimating the direction of 
their march. 

The Intendant, Baville, wrote to Louvois, minister 
of Louis XIY. during the persecutions, express- 
ing his surprise and alarm at the apparent evidences 
of organization amongst the peasantry. " I have just 
learned," said he in one letter,* " that last Sunday there 
was an assembly of nearly four hundred men, many of 
them armed, at the foot of the mountain of Lozere. I 
had thought," he added, " that the great lesson taught 
them at Yigan and Anduze would have restored tran- 
quillity to the Cevennes, at least for a time. But, on 
the contrary, the severity of the measures heretofore 
adopted seems only to have had the effect of exasperat- 
ing and hardening them in their iniquitous courses." 

As the massacres had failed, the question next arose 
whether the inhabitants might not be driven into exile, 
and the country entirely cleared of them. " They pre- 
tend," said Louvois, " to meet in ' the Desert ; ' why not 
take them at their word, and make the Cevennes really 
a Desert?" But there were difficulties in the way of 
executing this plan. In the first place, the Protestants 
of Languedoc were a quarter of a million in number. 
And, besides, if they were driven out of it, what would 
become of the industry and the wealth of this great 
province — what of the King's taxes ? 

The Duke de JNoailles advised that it would be neces- 
* October 20, 1686. 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 87 



sary to proceed with some caution in the matter. " If 
his Majesty," he wrote to Baville, "thinks there is no 
other remedy than changing the whole people of the 
Cevennes, it would be better to begin by expelling those 
who are not engaged in commerce, who inhabit inacces- 
sible mountain districts, where the severity of the 
climate and the poverty of the soil render them rude 
and barbarous, as in the case of those people who re- 
cently met at the foot of the Lozere. Should the King 
consent to this course, it will be necessary to send here 
at least four additional battalions of foot to execute his 
orders."* 

An attempt was made to carry out this measure of 
deportation of the people, but totally failed. With the 
aid of spies, stimulated by high rewards, numerous 
meetings in the Desert were fallen upon by the troops, 
and those who were not hanged were transported — some 
to Italy, some to Switzerland, and some to America. 
But transportation had no terrors for the people, and 
the meetings continued to be held as before. 

Baville then determined to occupy the entire province 
with troops, and to carry out a general disarmament of 
of the population. Eight regiments of regular infantry 
were sent into the Cevennes, and fifty regiments of 
militia were raised throughout the province, forming- 
together an army of some forty thousand men. Strong 
military posts were established in the mountains, and 
new forts and barracks were erected at Alais, Anduze, 
St. Hypolyte, and Msmes. The mountain-roads being 
almost impassable, many of them mere mule paths, 
Baville had more than a hundred new high-roads and 
branch-roads constructed and made practicable for the 
passage of troops and transport of cannon. 

* Noailles to Baville, 29th. October, 1686. 



88 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



By these means the whole country became strongly 
occupied, but still the meetings in the Desert went on. 
The peasantry continued to brave all risks — of exile, 
the galleys, the rack, and the gibbet — and persevered 
in their assemblies, until the very ferocity of their 
persecutors became wearied. The people would not be 
converted either by the dragoons or the priests who 
were stationed amongst them. In the dead of the night 
they would sally forth to their meetings in the hills ; 
though their mountains were not too steep, their valleys 
not too secluded, their defiles not too impenetrable to 
protect them from pursuit and attack, for they were 
liable at any moment to be fallen upon and put to the 
sword. 

The darkness, the dangers, the awe and mystery 
attending these midnight meetings invested them with 
an extraordinary degree of interest and even fascina- 
tion. It is not surprising that under such circumstances 
the devotion of these poor people should have run into 
fanaticism and superstition. Singing the psalms of 
Marot hj night, under the shadow of echoing rocks, 
they fancied they heard the sounds of heavenly voices 
filling the air. At other times they would meet amidst 
the ruins of their fallen sanctuaries, and mysterious 
sounds of sobbing and wailing and groaning would 
seem as if to rise from the tombs of their fathers. 

Under these distressing circumstances — in the midst 
of poverty, suffering, and terror — a sort of religious 
hysteria suddenly developed itself amongst the people, 
breaking out and spreading like many other forms of 
disease, and displaying itself chiefly in the most perse- 
cuted quarters of Dauphiny, Yiverais, and the Cevennes. 
The people had lost their pastors ; they had not the 



OUTBREAK IN LANG UEDOC. 



89 



guidance of sober and intelligent persons ; and they 
were left merely to pray and to suffer. The terrible 
raid of the priests against the Protestant books" had 
even deprived most of the Huguenots of their Bibles 
and psalm-books, so that they were in a great measure 
left to profit by their own light, such as it was. 

The disease to which we refer, had often before been 
experienced, under different forms, amongst uneducated 
people when afflicted by terror and excitement ; such, 
for instance, as the Brotherhood of the Flagellants, 
which followed the attack of the plague in the Middle 
Ages ; the Dancing Mania, which followed upon the 
Black Death ; the Child's Pilgrimages, the Convul- 
sionaires, the Revival epilepsies and swoons, which 
have so often accompanied fits of religious devotion 
worked up into frenzy ; these diseases being merely 
the result of excitement of the senses, which convulse 
the mind and powerfully affect the whole nervous 
system. 

The " prophetic malady," as we may call it, which 
suddenly broke out amongst the poor Huguenots, be- 
gan with epileptic convulsions. They fell to the ground 
senseless, foamed at the mouth, sobbed, and eventually 
revived so far as to be able to speak and " prophesy/' 
like a mesmerised person in a state of clairvoyance. The 
disease spread rapidly by the influence of morbid sym- 
pathy, which, under the peculiar circumstances we have 
described, exercises an amazing power over human 
minds. Those who spoke with power were considered 
" inspired." They prayed and preached extatically, 
the most inspired of the whole being women, boys, and 
even children. 

One of the first " prophets" who appeared was Isabel 
Yincent, a young shepherdess of Crest, in Dauphiny, 



go 



THE HUGUEXOTS. 



who could neither read nor write. Her usual speech 
was the patois of her country, but when she became in- 
spired she spoke perfectly, and, according to Hichelet, 
with great eloquence. " She chanted," he says, " at 
first the Commandments, then a psalm, in a low and 
fascinating voice. She meditated a moment, then 
began the lamentation of the Church, tortured, exiled, 
at the galleys, in the dungeons : for all those evils she 
blamed our sins only, and called all to penitence. 
Then, starting anew, she spoke angelically of the Divine 
goodness." 

Boucher, the intendant of the province, had her 
apprehended and examined. She woidd not renounce. 
"You may take my life," she said, " but Crod will raise 
up others to speak better things than I have done." 
She was at last imprisoned at Grenoble, and afterwards 
in the Tower of Constance. 

As Isabel Vincent had predicted, many prophets 
followed in her steps, but they did not prophesy so 
divinely as she. They denounced " TToe, woe " upon 
their persecutors. They reviled Babylon as the oppres- 
sor of the House of Israel. They preached the most 
violent declamations against Koine, drawn from the 
most lugubrious of the prophets, and stirred the minds 
of their hearers into the most furious indignation. 

The rapidity with which the contagion of convulsive 
prophesying spread was extraordinary. The adherents 
were all of the poorer classes, who read nothing but the 
Bible, and had it nearly by heart. It spread from 
Dauphiny to Yiverais, and from thence into the Ceven- 
nes. "I have seen," said Marshal Yillars, "things 
that I could never have believed if they had not passed 
under my own eyes — an entire city, in which all the 
women and girls, without exception, appeared possessed 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



by the devil ; they quaked and prophesied publicly in 
the streets."* 

Flottard says there were eight thousand persons in 
one province who had inspiration. All were not, how- 
ever, equally inspired. There were four degrees of 
ecstasy : first, the being called ; next, the inspiration ; 
then, the prophesy ; and, lastly, the gift, which was 
the inspiration in the highest degree. 

All this may appear ludicrous to some. And yet the 
school of credulity is a very wide one. Even in these 
enlightened times in which we live, we hear of tables 
turning, spelling out words, and " prophesying " in 
their own way. There are even philosophers, men of 
science, and literati who believe in spiritualists that 
rise on sofas and float about in the air, who project 
themselves suddenly out of one window and enter by 
another, and do many other remarkable things. And 
though our spiritual table-rapping and floating about 
may seem to be of no possible use, the " prophesying " 
of the Camisards was all but essential to the existence 
of the movement in which they were engaged. 

The population became intensely excited by the pre- 
valence of this enthusiasm or fanaticism. "When a 
Huguenot assembly," says Brueys, " was appointed, 
even before daybreak, from all the hamlets round, the 
men, women, boys, girls, and even infants, came in 
crowds, hurrying from their huts, pierced through the 
woods, leapt over the rocks, and flew to the place of 
appointment." f 

Mere force was of no avail against people who sup- 
posed themselves to be under supernatural influences. 
The meetings in the Desert, accordingly, were attendeqf 

* " Vie du Marechal de Villars," i. 125. 

f Brueys, " Histoire du Fanaticisme de Notre Temps." 



9 2 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



with, increased and increasing fascination, and Baville, 
who had reported to the King the entire pacification 
and conversion of Languedoc, to his dismay found the 
whole province bursting with excitement, which a 
spark at any moment might fire into frenzy. And that 
spark was shortly afterwards supplied by the archpriest 
Chayla, director of missions at Pont-de-Montvert. 

Although it was known that many of the peasantry 
attended the meetings armed, there had as yet been no 
open outbreak against the royal authority in the Ceven- 
nes. At Cheilaret, in the Yivarais, there had been an 
encounter between the troops and the peasantry ; but 
the people were speedily dispersed, leaving three hun- 
dred dead and fifty wounded on the field. 

The Intenclant Baville, after thus pacifying the 
Yivarais, was proceeding on his way back to Montpellier, 
escorted by some companies of dragoons and militia, 
passing through the Cevennes by one of the new roads 
he had caused to be constructed along the valley of the 
Tarn, by Pont- de- Mont vert to Florae. What was his 
surprise, on passing through the village of Pont-de- 
Montvert, to hear the roll of a drum, and shortly after to 
perceive a column of rustics, some three or four hundred 
in number, advancing as if to give him battle. Baville 
at once drew up his troops and charged the column, 
which broke and fled into an adjoining wood. Some 
were killed and others taken prisoners, who were 
hanged next day at St. Jean- du- Gar d. A reward of 
five hundred louis d'or was advertised for the leader, 
who was shortly after tracked to his hiding-place in a 
cavern situated between Anduze and Alais, and was 
there shot, but not until after he had killed three 
soldiers with his fusil. 

After this event persecution was redoubled through- 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



93 



out the Cevennes. The militia ran night and day after 
the meetings in the Desert. All persons found attend- 
ing them, who could be captured, were either killed on 
the spot or hanged. Two companies of militia were 
quartered in Pont-de-Montvert at the expense of the 
inhabitants ; and they acted under the direction of the 
archpriest Du Chayla. This priest, who was a native 
of the district, had been for some time settled as a 
missionary in Siam engaged in the conversion of Budd- 
hists, and on his return to France he was appointed to 
undertake the conversion of the people of the Cevennes 
to the faith of Rome. 

The village of Pont-de-Montvert is situated in the 
hollow of a deep valley formed by the mountain of Lozere 
on the north, and of Bouges on the south, at the point 
at which two streams, descending from their respective 
summits, flow into the Tarn. The village is separated 
by these streams into three little hamlets, which are 
joined together by the bridge which gives its name to 
the place. The addition of " Mont Vert," however, 
is a misnomer ; for though seated at the foot of a steep 
mountain, it is not green, but sterile, rocky, and ver- 
dureless. The village is best reached from Florae, 
from which it is about twenty miles distant. The 
valley runs east and west, and is traversed by a toler- 
ably good road, which at the lower part follows the 
windings of the Tarn, and higher up runs in and out 
along the mountain ledges, at every turn presenting 
new views of the bold, grand, and picturesque scenery 
which characterizes the wilder parts of the Cevennes. 
Along this route the old mule-road is still discernible 
in some places — a difficult, rugged, mountain path, 
which must have kept the district sealed up during the 



94 THE HUGUENOTS. 

i 

greater part of the year, until Baville constructed the 
new road for the purpose of opening up the country 
for the easier passage of troops and munitions of war. 

A few poor hamlets occur at intervals along the 
road, sometimes perched on apparently inaccessible 
rocks, and at the lower part of the valley an occa- 
sional chateau is to be seen, as at Miral, picturesquely 
situated on a height. But the country is too poor by 
nature — the breadth of land in the bottom of the 
ravine being too narrow and that on the mountain 
ledges too stony and sterile — ever to have enabled it 
to maintain a considerable population. On all sides 
little is to be seen but rocky mountain sides, stony 
and precipitous, with bold mountain peaks extending 
beyond them far away in the distance. 

Pont-de-Montvert is the centre of a series of hamlets, 
the inhabitants of which were in former times almost 
exclusively Protestant, as they are now ; and where 
meetings in the Desert were of the most frequent 
occurrence. Strong detachments of troops were accord- 
ingly stationed there and at Florae for the purpose of 
preventing the meetings and overawing the popula- 
tion. Besides soldiers, the authorities also established 
missions throughout the Cevennes, and the principal 
inspector of these missions was the archpriest Chayla. 
The house in which he resided at Pont-de-Montvert is 
still pointed out. It is situated near the north end 
of the bridge over the Tarn ; but though the lower part 
of the building remains as it was in his time, the upper 
portion has been for the most part rebuilt. 

Chayla was a man of great force of character — 
zealous, laborious, and indefatigable — but pitiless, re- 
lentless, and cruel. He had no bowels of compas- 
sion. He was deaf to all appeals for mercy. With 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



95 



him the penalty of non-belief in the faith of Rome 
was imprisonment, torture, death. Eight young priests 
lived with him, whose labours he directed ; and 
great was his annoyance to find that the people would 
not attend his ministrations, but continued to flock 
after their own prophet-preachers in the Desert. 

Moral means having failed, he next tried physical. 
He converted the arched cellars of his dwelling into 
dungeons, where he shut up those guilty of contumacy ; 
and day by day he put them to torture. It seems like a 
satire on religion to say that, in his attempt to convert 
souls, this vehement missionary made it one of his 
principal studies to find out what amount of agony the 
bodies of those who differed from him would bear short 
of actual death. He put hot coals into their hands, 
which they were then made to clench ; wrapped round 
their fingers cotton steeped in oil, which was then set 
on fire ; besides practising upon them the more 
ordinary and commonplace tortures. No wonder that 
the archpriest came to be detested by the inhabitants 
of Pont-de-Montvert. 

At length, a number of people in the district, in 
order to get beyond reach of Chayla's cruelty, deter- 
mined to emigrate from France and take refuge in 
Geneva. They assembled one morning secretly, a 
cavalcade of men and women, and set out under 
the direction of a guide who knew the mountain 
paths towards the east. When they had travelled 
a few hours, they fe]l into an ambuscade of militia, 
and were marched back to the archpriest' s quarters 
at Pont-de-Montvert. The women were sent to 
Mende to be immured in convents, and the men 
were imprisoned in the archpriest's dungeons. The 
parents of some of the captives ran to throw themselves 



9 6 THE HUGUENOTS. 

at his feet, and implored mercy for their sons ; hut 
Chayla was inexorable. He declared harshly that the 
prisoners must suffer according to the law — that the 
fugitives must go the galleys, and their guide to the 
gibbet. 

On the following Sunday, the 23rd of July, 1702, 
one of the preaching prophets, Pierre Seguier of 
Magistavols, a hamlet lying to the south of Pont-de- 
Montvert, preached to an assembly on the neighbour- 
ing mountain of Bouges ; and there he declared that 
the Lord had ordered him to take up arms to deliver 
the captives and exterminate the archpriest of Moloch. 
Another and another preacher followed in the same 
strain, the excited assembly encouraging them by 
their cries, and calling upon them to execute Grod's 
vengeance on the persecutors of God's people. 

That same night Seguier and his companions went 
round amongst the neighbouring hamlets to summon 
an assemblage of their sworn followers for the evening 
of the following day. They met punctually in the 
Altefage Wood, and under the shadow of three 
gigantic beech trees, the trunks of which were stand- 
ing but a few years ago, they solemnly swore to deliver 
their companions and destroy the archpriest. 

When night fell, a band of fifty determined men 
marched down the mountain towards the bridge, 
led by Seguier. Twenty of them were armed with 
guns and pistols. The rest carried scythes and 
hatchets. As they approached the village, they sang 
Marot's version of the seventy -fourth Psalm. The 
archpriest heard the unwonted sound as they came 
marching along. Thinking it was a nocturnal as- 
sembly, he cried to his soldiers, " Run and see what 
this means." But the doors of the house were already 



OUTBREAK IN LANGUEDOC. 



invested by the mountaineers, who shouted out for 
" The prisoners ! the prisoners ! " " Back, Huguenot 
canaille ! " cried Ohayla from the window. But they 
only shouted the louder for " The prisoners ! " 

The archpriest then directed the militia to fire, and 
one of the peasants fell dead. Infuriated, they seized 
the trunk of a tree, and using it as a battering-ram, at 
once broke in the door. They next proceeded to force 
the entrance to the dungeon, in which they succeeded, 
and called upon the prisoners to come forth. But 
some of them were so crippled by the tortures 
to which they had been subjected, that they could 
not stand. At sight of their sufferings the fury of the 
assailants increased, and, running up the staircase, 
they called out for the archpriest. " Burn the priest 
and the satellites of Baal ! " cried their leader ; and 
heaping together the soldiers' straw beds, the chairs, 
and other combustibles, they set the whole on fire. 

Chayla, in the hope of escaping, jumped from a 
window into the garden, and in the fall broke his leg. 
The peasants discovered him by the light of the blazing 
dwelling. He called for mercy. " No," said Seguier, 
"only such mercy as you have shown to others and 
he struck him the first blow. 

The others followed. " This for my father," said 
the next, " whom you racked to death !" 

" This for my brother," said another, " whom you 
sent to the galleys !" 

" This for my mother, who died of grief ! " 

This for my sister, my relatives, my friends, in 
exile, in prison, in misery ! 

And thus blow followed blow, fifty-two in all, half 
of which would probably have been mortal, and the 
detested Chayla lay a bleeding mass at their feet ! 

H 




Map of the Country of the Cevennes. 



CHAPTER VI. 



INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 

HHHE poor peasants, wool-carders, and neatherds of 
the Cevennes, formed only a small and insignifi- 
cant section of the great body of men who were about 
the same time engaged in different countries of Europe 
in vindicating the cause of civil and religious liberty. 
For this cause, a comparative handful of people in the 
Low Countries, occupying the Dutch United Pro- 
vinces, had banded themselves together to resist the 
armies of Spain, then the most powerful monarchy in 
the world. The struggle had also for some time been 
in progress in England and Scotland, where it cul- 
minated in the Revolution of 1688 ; and it was still 
raging in the Vaudois valleys of Piedmont. 

The object contended for in all these cases was the 
same. It was the vindication of human freedom 
against royal and sacerdotal despotism. It could 
only have been the direst necessity that drove a poor, 
scattered, unarmed peasantry, such as the people of 
the Cevennes, to take up arms against so powerful a 
sovereign as Louis XIV. Their passive resistance 
had lasted for fifteen long years, during which many 
of them had seen their kindred racked, hanged, or 
sent to the galleys ; and at length their patience was 



100 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



exhausted, and the inevitable outburst took place. Yet 
they were at any moment ready to lay down their 
arms and return to their allegiance, provided only a 
reasonable degree of liberty of worship were assured to 
them. This, however, their misguided and bigoted 
monarch would not tolerate ; for he had sworn that 
no persons were to be suffered in his dominions save 
those who were of "the King's religion." 

The circumstances accompanying the outbreak of 
the Protestant peasantry in the Cevennes in many 
respects resembled those which attended the rising of 
the Scotch Covenanters in 1679. Both were occa- 
sioned by the persistent attempts of men in power to 
enforce a particular form of religion at the point of the 
sword. The resisters of the policy were in both cases 
Calvinists;* and they were alike indomitable and 
obstinate in their assertion of the rights of conscience. 
They held that religion was a matter between man and 
his G-od, and not between man and his sovereign or the 
Pope. The peasantry in both cases persevered in their 

* Whether it be that Calvinism is electic as regards races and 
individuals, or that it has (as is most probably the case) a powerful 
formative influence upon individual character, certain it is that the 
Calvinists of all countries have presented the strongest possible re- 
semblance to each other — the Calvinists of Geneva and Holland, the 
Huguenots of France, tbe Covenanters of Scotland, and the Puritans 
of Old and New England, seeming, as it were, to be but members of 
the same family. It is curious to speculate on the influence which 
the religion of Calvin — himself a Frenchman — might have exercised 
on the history of France, as well as on the individual character of 
Frenchmen, had the balance of forces carried the nation bodily over 
to Protestantism (as was very nearly the case) towards the end of the 
sixteenth century. Heinrich Heine has expressed the opinion that 
the western races contain a large proportion of men for whom the 
moral principle of Judaism has a strong elective affinity ; and in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Old Testament certainly 
seems to have exercised a much more powerful influence on the minds 
of religious reformers than the New. " The Jews," says Heine, 
" were the Germans of the East, and nowadays the Protestants in 
German countries (England, Scotland, America, Germany, Holland) 
are nothing more nor less than ancient Oriental Jews." 



INSURRECTION OF THE C AMI SARDS. 101 



own form of worship. In Languedoc, the moun- 
taineers of the Cevennes held their assemblies in " The 
Desert ;" and in Scotland, the "hill-folk" of the West 
held their meetings on the muirs. In the one country 
as in the other, the monarchs sent out soldiers as their 
missionaries— Louis XIY. employing the dragoons of 
Louvois and Baville, and Charles II. those of Claver- 
house and Dalzell. These failing, new instruments of 
torture were invented for their " conversion." But the 
people, in both cases, continued alike stubborn in their 
adherence to their own simple and, as some thought, 
uncouth form of faith. 

The French Calvinist peasantry, like the Scotch, 
were great in their preachers and their prophets. 
Both devoted themselves with enthusiasm to psalmody, 
insomuch that "psalm-singers" was their nickname in 
both countries. The one had their Clement Marot by 
heart, the other their Sternhold and Hopkins. Hugue- 
not prisoners in chains sang psalms in their dungeons, 
galley slaves sang them as they plied at the oar, 
fugitives in the halting-places of their flight, the con- 
demned as they marched to the gallows, and the 
Camisards as they rushed into battle. It was said of 
the Covenanters that "they lived praying and preach- 
ing, and they died praying and fighting ; " and the 
same might have been said of the Huguenot peasantry 
of the Cevennes. 

The immediate cause of the outbreak of the insur- 
rection in both countries was also similar. In the one 
case, it was the cruelty of the archpriest C hay la, the 
inventor of a new machine of torture called " the 
Squeezers,"* and in the other the cruelty of Arch- 

* The instrument is thus described by Cavalier, in his " Memoirs 
of the Wars of the Cevennes," London, 1726 : "This inhuman man 



102 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



bishop Sharpe, the inventor of that horrible instrument 
called " the Iron Boot/' that excited the fury of the 
people ; and the murder of the one by Seguier and his 
band at Pont-de-Montvert, as of the other by Balfour 
of Burley and his companions on Magus Muir, proved 
the signal for a general insurrection of the peasantry 
in both countries. Both acts were of like atrocity ; 
but they corresponded in character with the cruelties 
which had provoked them. Insurrections, like revolu- 
tions, are not made of rose-water. In such cases, 
action and reaction are equal; the violence of the 
oppressors usually finding its counterpart in the vio- 
lence of the oppressed. 

The insurrection of the French peasantry proved by 
far the most determined and protracted of the two ; 
arising probably from the more difficult character of 
the mountain districts which they occupied and the 
quicker military instincts of the people, as well as 
because several of their early leaders and organizers 
were veteran soldiers who had served in many cam- 
paigns. The Scotch insurgents were suppressed by the 
English army under the Duke of Monmouth in less 
than two months after the original outbreak, though 
their cause eventually triumphed in the Revolution of 
1688 ; whereas the peasantry of the Cevennes, though 
deprived of all extraneous help, continued to maintain 
a heroic struggle for several years, but were under the 
necessity of at last succumbing to the overpowering 
military force of Louis XIV., after which the Hugue- 

had invented a rack (more cruel, if it be possible, tban that usually 
made use of) to torment these poor unfortunate gentlemen and ladies; 
which was a beam he caused to be split in two, with vices at each 
end. Every morning he would send for these poor people, in order 
to examine them, and if they refused to confess what he desired, he 
caused their legs to be put in the slit of the beam, and there squeezed 
them till the bones cracked," &c, &c. (p. 35). 



INSURRECTION OF THE C A MIS ARBS. ro 3 



nots of France continued to be stamped out of sight, 
and apparently out of existence, for nearly a century. 

In the preceding chapter, we left the archpriest 
Chayla a corpse at the feet of his murderers. Several 
of the soldiers found in the chateau were also killed, as 
well as the cook and house- steward, who had helped to 
torture the prisoners. But one of the domestics, and 
a soldier, who had treated them with kindness, 
were, at their intercession, pardoned and set at liberty. 
The corpses were brought together in the garden, and 
Seguier and his companions, kneeling round them — a 
grim and ghastly sight — sang psalms until daybreak, 
the uncouth harmony mingling with the crackling of 
the flames of the dwelling overhead, and the sullen 
•roar of the river rushing under the neighbouring bridge. 

When the grey of morning appeared, the men rose 
from their knees, emerged from the garden, crossed the 
bridge, and marched up the main street of the village. 
The inhabitants had barricaded themselves in their 
houses, being in a state of great fear lest they should 
be implicated in the murder of the archpriest. But 
Seguier and his followers made no further halt in Pont- 
de-Montvert, but passed along, still singing psalms, 
towards the hamlet of Frugeres, a little further up the 
valley of the Tarn. 

Seguier has been characterised as "the Danton of 
the Cevennes." This fierce and iron- willed man was 
of great stature — bony and dark-visaged, without upper 
teeth, his hair hanging loose over his shoulders — and 
of a wild and mystic appearance, occasioned probably 
by the fits of ecstasy to which he was subject, and the 
wandering life he had for so many years led as a 
prophet-preacher in the Desert. This terrible man 



1 04 THE HUG UENOTS, 

had resolved upon a general massacre of the priests, 
and he now threw himself upon Frugeres for the pur- 
pose of carrying out the enterprise begun by him at 
Pont-de-Montvert. The cure of the hamlet, who had 
already heard of Chayla's murder, fled from his house 
at sound of the approaching psalm- singers, and took 
refuge in an adjoining rye-field. He was speedily 
tracked thither, and brought down by a musket-ball ; 
and a list of twenty of his parishioners, whom he had 
denounced to the archpriest, was found under his 
cassock. 

From Frugeres the prophet and his band marched 
on to St. Maurice de Yentalong, so called because of 
the winds which at certain seasons blow so furiously 
along the narrow valley in which it is situated; but 
the prior of the convent, having been warned of the 
outbreak, had already mounted his horse and taken to 
flight. Here Seguier was informed of the approach of 
a body of militia who were on his trail ; but he avoided 
them by taking refuge on a neighbouring mountain- 
side, where he spent the night with his companions in 
a thicket. 

Next morning, at daybreak, he descended the moun- 
tain, crossed the track of his pursuers, and directed 
himself upon St. Andre de Lanceze. The whole 
country was by this time in a state of alarm ; and the 
cure of the place, being on the outlook, mounted the 
clock-tower and rang the tocsin. But his parishioners 
having joined the insurgents, the cure was pursued, 
captured in the belfry, and thrown from its highest 
window. The insurgents then proceeded to gut the 
church, pull down the crosses, and destroy all the em- 
blems of Romanism on which they could lay their 
hands. 



INSURRECTION 02^ THE C AMIS ARBS. 105 

Segiiier and his band next hurried across the moun- 
tains towards the south, having learnt that the cures of 
the neighbourhood had assembled at St. Germain to 
assist at the obsequies of the archpriest Chayla, whose 
body had been brought thither from Pont-de-Montvert 
on the morning after his murder. When Seguier was 
informed that the town and country militia were in 
force in the place, he turned aside and went in another 
direction. The cures, however, having heard that 
Seguier was in the neighbourhood, fled panic-stricken, 
some to the chateau of Portes, others to St. Andre, 
while a number of them did not halt until they had 
found shelter within the walls of Alais, some twenty 
miles distant. 

Thus four days passed. On the fifth night Seguier 
appeared before the chateau of Ladeveze, and demanded 
the arms which had been deposited there at the time of 
the disarmament of the peasantry. The owner replied 
by a volley of musketry, which killed and wounded 
several of the insurgents, at the same time ringing the 
alarm-bell. Seguier, furious at this resistance, at once 
burst open the gates, and ordered a general massacre of 
the household. This accomplished, he ransacked the 
place of its arms and ammunition, and before leaving 
set the castle on fire, the flames throwing a lurid glare 
over the surrounding countiy. Seguier' s band then 
descended the mountain on which the chateau is situ- 
ated, and made for the north in the direction of Cas- 
sagnas, arriving at the elevated plateau of Font-Morte 
a little before daybreak. 

In the meantime, Baville, the intendant of the pro- 
vince, was hastening to Pont-de-Montvert to put down 
the insurrection and avenge the death of the archpriest. 
The whole country was roused. Troops were dispatched 



io6 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



in hot haste from Alais ; the militia were assembled 
from all quarters and marched upon the disturbed dis- 
trict. The force was placed under the orders of 
Captain Poul, an old soldier of fortune, who had distin- 
guished himself in the German wars, and in the recent 
crusade against the Italian Yaudois. It was because of 
the individual prowess which Captain Poul had displayed 
in his last campaign, that, at the peace of Pyswick, 
Baville requested that he should be attached to the 
army of Languedoc, and employed in putting down the 
insurgents of the Cevennes. 

Captain Poul was hastening with his troops to Florae 
when, having been informed of the direction in which 
Seguier and his band had gone, he turned aside at 
Barre, and after about an hour's march eastward, he 
came up with them at Font-Morte. They suddenly 
started up from amongst the broom where they had 
lain down to sleep, and, firing off their guns upon the 
advancing host, without offering any further resistance, 
fled in all directions. Poul and his men spurred 
after them, cutting down the fugitives. Coming up 
with Seguier, who was vainly trying to rally his men, 
Poul took him prisoner with several others, and the} r 
were forthwith chained and marched to Florae. As 
they proceeded along the road, Poul said to Seguier, 
" Well, wretch ! now I have got you, how do you ex- 
pect to be treated after the crimes you have com- 
mitted ? " " As I would myself have treated you, had 
I taken you prisoner," was the reply. 

Seguier stood before his judges calm and fearless. 
"What is your name?" he was asked. "Pierre 
Seguier." "Why do they call you Esprit?" "Be- 
cause the Spirit of God is in me." "Your abode?" 
" In the Desert, and shortly in heaven." " Ask pardon 



INSURRECTION OF THE C AMI SARDS, 107 



of the King ! " " We have no other King but the 
Eternal." " Have you no feeling of remorse for your 
crimes ? " " My soul is as a garden full of shady 
groves and of peaceful fountains." 

Segruier was condemned to have his hands cut off at 
the wrist, and be burnt alive at Pont-de-Montvert. 
Nouvel, another of the prisoners, was broken alive at 
Ladeveze, and Bonnet, a third, was hanged at St. 
Andre. They all suffered without flinching. Seguier's 
last words, spoken amidst the flames, were, " Brethren ^ 
wait, and hope in the Eternal. The desolate Carmel 
shall yet revive, and the solitary Lebanon shall blossom 
as the rose ! " Thus perished the grim, unflinching 
prophet of Magistavols, the terrible avenger of the 
cruelties of Chayla, the earliest leader in the insurrec- 
tion of the Camisards ! 

It is not exactly known how or when the insurgents 
were first called Camisards. They called themselves 
by no other name than " The Children of God " (En- 
fants de Bleu) ; but their enemies variously nicknamed 
them " The Barbets," " The Vagabonds," " The As- 
semblers," "The Psalm-singers," "The Fanatics," and 
lastly, " The Camisards." This name is said to have 
been given them because of the common blouse or 
camisole which they wore — their only uniform. Others 
say that it arose from their wearing a white shirt, or 
camise, over their dress, to enable them to distinguish 
each other in their night attacks ; and that this was not 
the case, is partly countenanced by the fact that in the 
course of the insurrection a body of peasant royalists 
took the field, who designated themselves the " White 
Camisards," in contradistinction from the others. Others 
say the word is derived from camis, signifying a road- 
runner. But whatever the origin of the word may be, 



I 

1 08 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



the Camisards was the name most commonly applied to 
i he insurgents, and by which they continue to be known 
in local history. 

Captain Poul vigorously followed up the blow 
delivered at Font-Morte. He apprehended all sus- 
pected persons in the Upper Cevennes, and sent them 
before the judges at Florae. Unable to capture the 
? nsurgents who had escaped, he seized their parents, 
their relations, and families, and these were condemned 
to various punishments. But what had become of the 
insurgents themselves ? Knowing that they had 
nothing but death to expect, if taken, they hid them- 
selves in caves known only to the inhabitants of the 
district, and so secretly that Poul thought they had 
succeeded in making their escape from France. The 
Intendant Baville arrived at the same conclusion, and 
he congratulated himself accordingly on the final 
suppression of the outbreak. Leaving sundry detach- 
ments of troops posted in the principal villages, he 
returned to Alais, and invited the fugitive priests at 
once to return to their respective parishes. 

After remaining in concealment for several days, the 
surviving insurgents met one night to consult as to the 
steps they were to take, with a view to their personal 
safety. They had by this time been joined by several 
sympathizers, amongst others by three veteran soldiers 
— Laporte, Esperandieu, and Pastelet — and by young 
Cavalier, who had just returned from Geneva, where he 
had been in exile, and was now ready to share in the 
dangers of his compatriots. The greater number of 
those present were in favour of bidding a final adieu 
to France, and escaping across the frontier into 
Switzerland, considering that the chances of their 



INSURRECTION OF THE CA MIS A RES. 109 



offering any successful resistance to their oppressors 
were altogether hopeless. But against this craven 
course Laporte raised his voice. 

" Brethren," said he, "why depart into the land of 
the stranger ? Have we not a country of our own, the 
country of our fathers ? It is, you say, a country of 
slavery and death ! Well !' Free it ! and deliver your 
oppressed brethren. Never say, 1 What can we do ? 
we are few in number, and without arms ! ' The God 
of armies shall be our strength. Let us sing aloud the 
psalm of battles, and from the Lozere even to the sea 
Israel will arise ! As for arms, have we not our 
hatchets ? These will bring us muskets ! Brethren, 
there is only one course worthy to be pursued. It is to 
live for our country ; and, if need be, to die for it. 
Better die by the sword than by the rack or the 
gallows ! " 

From this moment, not another word was said of 
flight. With one voice, the assembly cried to the 
speaker, " Be our chief ! It is the will of the 
Eternal ! " " The Eternal be the witness of your 
promises," replied Laporte ; " I consent to be your 
chief ! " He assumed forthwith the title of " Colonel 
of the Children of Gfod," and named his camp " The 
camp of the Eternal ! " 

Laporte belonged to an old Huguenot family of 
the village of Massoubeyran, near Anduze. They were 
respectable peasants, some of whom lived by farming 
and others by trade. Old John Laporte had four sons, 
of whom the eldest succeeded his father as a small 
farmer and cattle-breeder, occupying the family dwell- 
ing at Massoubeyran, still known there as the house of 
" Laporte-Roland." It contains a secret retreat, open- 
ing from a corner of the floor, called the " Cachette 'de 



I 10 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Roland," in which the celebrated chief of this name, 
son of the owner, was accustomed to take refuge ; and 
in this cottage, the old Bible of Roland's father, as well 
as the halbert of Roland himself, continue to be reli- 
giously preserved. 

Two of Laporte's brothers were Protestant ministers. 
One of them was the last pastor of Collet-de-Deze in 
the Cevennes. Banished because of his faith, he fled 
from France at the Revocation, joined the army of the 
Prince of Orange in Holland, and came over with him 
to England as chaplain of one of the French regiments 
which landed at Torbay in 1688. Another brother, also 
a pastor, remained in the Cevennes, preaching to the 
people in the Desert, though at the daily risk of his 
life, and after about ten years' labour in this vocation, 
he was apprehended, taken prisoner to Montpellier, and 
strangled on the Peyrou in the year 1696. 

The fourth brother was the Laporte whom we have 
just described as undertaking the leadership of the 
hunted insurgents remaining in the Upper Cevennes. 
He had served as a soldier in the King's armies, and at 
the peace of Ryswick returned to his native village, the 
year after his elder brother had suffered martyrdom at 
Montpellier. He settled for a time at Collet-de-Deze, 
from which his other brother had been expelled, and 
there he carried on the trade of an ironworker and 
blacksmith. He was a great, brown, brawny man, of 
vehement piety, a constant frequenter of the meetings 
in the Desert, and a mighty psalm- singer — one of 
those strong, massive, ardent-natured men who so 
powerfully draw others after them, and in times of 
revolution exercise a sort of popular royalty amongst 
the masses. The oppression which had raged so 
furiously in the district excited his utmost indignation, 



INSURRECTION OF THE CA MIS A RES. 1 1 1 



and when he sought out the despairing insurgents in 
the mountains, and found that they were contemplating 
flight, he at once gave utterance to the few burning 
words we have cited, and fixed their determination 
to strike at least another blow for the liberty of their 
country and their religion. 

The same evening on which Laporte assumed the 
leadership (about the beginning of August, 1702) he 
made a descent on three Roman Catholic villages in 
the neighbourhood of the meeting-place, and obtained 
possession of a small stock of po wder and balls. When 
it became known that the insurgents were again draw- 
ing together, others joined them. Amongst these were 
Castonet, a forest-ranger of the Aigoal mountain 
district in the west, who brought with him some 
twelve recruits from the country near Yebron. Shortly 
after, there arrived from Yauvert the soldier Catinet, 
bringing with him twenty more. Next came young 
Cavalier, from Eibaute, with another band, armed with 
muskets which they had seized from the prior of St. 
Martin, with whom they had been deposited. 

Meanwhile Laporte' s nephew, young Roland, was 
running from village to village in the Yaunage, hold- 
ing assemblies and rousing the people to come to the 
help of their distressed brethren in the mountains. 
Roland was a young man of bright intelligence, gifted 
with much of the preaching power of his family. His 
eloquence was of a martial sort, for he had been bred 
a soldier, and though young, had already fought in 
many battles. He was everywhere received with open 
arms in the Yaunage. 

" My brethren," said he, " the cause of God and the 
deliverance of Israel is at stake. Follow us to the 
mountains. No country is better suited for war — we 



1 12 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



have the hill- tops for camps, gorges for ambuscades, 
woods to rally in, caves to hide in, and, in case of flight, 
secret tracts trodden only by the mountain goat. All 
the people there are your brethren, who will throw 
open their cabins to you, and share their bread and 
milk and the flesh of their sheep with you, while the 
forests will supply you with chestnuts. And then, 
what is there to fear ? Did not God nourish his 
chosen people with manna in the desert ? And does 
He not renew his miracles day by day ? Will not his 
Spirit descend upon his afflicted children? He con- 
soles us, He strengthens us, He calls us to arms, He 
will cause his angels to march before us ! As for me, 
I am an old soldier, and will do my duty ! "* 

These stirring words evoked an enthusiastic response. 
Numbers of the people thus addressed by Roland 
declared themselves ready to follow him at once. But 
instead of taking with him all who were willing to 
join the standard of the insurgents, he directed them 
to enrol and organize themselves, and await his 
speedy return; selecting for the present only such 
as were in his opinion likely to make efficient sol- 
diers, and with these he rejoined his uncle in the 
mountains. 

The number of the insurgents was thus raised to 
about a hundred and fifty — a very small body of men, 
contemptible in point of numbers compared with the 
overwhelming forces by which they were opposed, but 
all animated by a determined spirit, and commanded by 
fearless and indomitable leaders. The band was divided 
into three brigades of fifty each ; Laporte taking the 
command of the companions of Seguier ; the new-comers 

* Brueys, " Histoire de Fanatisme ; " Peyrat, " Histoire des 
Pasteurs du Desert." 



INSURRECTION OF THE C A MIS ARBS. 113 



being divided into two bodies of like number, who 
elected Roland and Castanet as their respective chiefs. 

Laporte occupied the last days of August in drilling 
his troops, and familiarising them with the mountain 
district which was to be the scene of their operations. 
While thus engaged, he received an urgent message 
from the Protestant herdsmen of the hill-country of 
Yebron, whose cattle, sheep, and goats a band of 
royalist militia, under Colonel Miral, had captured, and 
were driving northward towards Florae. Laporte 
immediately ran to their help, and posted himself to 
intercept them at the bridge of Tarnon, which they must 
cross. On the militia coming up, the Camisards fell 
upon them furiously, on which they took to flight, and 
the cattle were driven back in triumph to the villages. 

Laporte then led his victorious troops towards 
Collet, the village in which his brother had been 
pastor. The temple in which he ministered was still 
standing — the only one in the Cevennes that had not 
been demolished, the Seigneur of the place intending 
to convert it into a hospital. Collet was at present 
occupied by a company of fusiliers, commanded by 
Captain Cabrieres. On nearing the place, Laporte 
wrote to this officer, under an assumed name, intimating 
that a religious assembly was to be held that night in a 
certain wood in the neighbourhood. The captain at 
once marched thither with his men, on which Laporte 
entered the village, and reopened the temple, which 
had continued unoccupied ,since the day on which his 
brother had gone into exile. All that night Laporte 
sang psalms, preached, and prayed by turns, solemnly 
invoking the help of the God of battles in this holy 
war in which he was engaged for the liberation of his 
country. Shortly before daybreak, Laporte and his 

1 



ii4 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



companions retired from the temple, and after setting 
fire to the Roman Catholic church, and the houses of 
the consul, the captain, and the cure, he left the 
village, and proceeded in a northerly direction. 

That same morning, Captain Poul arrived at the 
neighbouring valley of St. Germain, for the purpose of 
superintending the demolition of certain Protestant 
dwellings, and then he heard of Laporte' s midnight 
expedition. He immediately hastened to Collet, 
assembled all the troops he could muster, and put 
himself on the track of the Camisards. After a hot 
march of about two hours in the direction of Coudouloux, 
Poul discerned Laporte and his band encamped on a 
lofty height, from the scarped foot of which a sloping 
grove of chestnuts descended into the wide grassy 
plain, known as the " Champ Domergue. ,, 

The chestnut grove had in ancient times been one of 
the sacred places of the Druids, who celebrated their 
mysterious rites in its recesses, while the adjoining 
mountains were said to have been the honoured haunts 
of certain of the divinities of ancient Gaul. It was 
therefore regarded as a sort of sacred place, and this 
circumstance was probably not without its influence in 
rendering it one of the most frequent resorts of the 
hunted Protestants in their midnight assemblies, as 
well as because it occupied a central position between 
the villages of St. Frezal, St. Andeol, Deze, and Yiolas. 
Laporte had now come hither with his companions to 
pray, and they were so engaged when the scouts on 
the look-out announced the approach of the enemy. 

Poul halted his men to take breath, while Laporte 
held a little council of war. What was to be done ? 
Laporte himself was in favour of accepting battle on 
the spot, while several of his lieutenants advised imme- 



INSURRECTION OF THE C AMIS ARBS. 115 



diate flight into the mountains. On the other hand, 
the young and impetuous Cavalier, who was there, 
supported the opinion of his chief, and urged an im- 
mediate attack ; and an attack was determined on 
accordingly. 

The little band descended from their vantage-ground 
on the hill, and came down into the chestnut wood, 
singing the sixty-eighth Psalm — "Let God arise, let 
his enemies be scattered." The following is the song 
itself, in the words of Marot. "When the Huguenots 
sang it, each soldier became a lion in courage. 

" Que Dieu se montre seulement 
Et Ton verra dans un moment 

Abandonner la place ; 
Le camp des ennemies epars, 
Epouvante de toutes parts, 

Fuira devant sa face. 

On verra tout ce camp s'enfuir, 
Comme Ton voit s'evanouir 

Une epaisse fumee ; 
Comme la cire fond au feu, 
Ainsi des mechants devant Dieu, 

La force est consumee. 

L'Eternel est notre recours : 
Nous obtenons par son secours, 

Plus d'une deliverance. 
C'est Lui qui fut notre support, 
Et qui tient les clefs de la mort, 

Lui seul en sa puissance. 

A nous defendre toujours prompt, 
II frappe le superbe front 

De la troupe ennemie ; 
On verra tomber sous ses coups 
Ceux qui provoquent son courroux 

Par leur mechante vie. 

This was the " Marseillaise" of the Camisards, their 
war-song in many battles, sung by them as a pas de 
charge to the music of Groudimal. Poul, seeing them 
approach from under cover of the wood, charged them 



n6 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



at once, shouting to his men, *< Charge, kill, kill the 
Barbets ! ,J * But " the Barbets," though they were 
only as one to three of their assailants, bravely held 
their ground. Those who had muskets kept up a 
fusilade, whilst a body of scythemen in the centre 
repulsed Poul, who attacked them with the bayonet. 
Several of these terrible scythemen were, however, slain, 
and three were taken prisoners. 

Laporte, finding that he could not drive Poul back, 
retreated slowly into the wood, keeping up a running 
fire, and reascended the hill, whither Poul durst not 
follow him. The Royalist leader was satisfied with 
remaining master of the hard-fought field, on which 
many of his soldiers lay dead, together with a captain 
of militia. 

The Camisard chiefs then separated, Laporte and his 
band taking a westerly direction. The Royalists, 
having received considerable reinforcements, hastened 
from different directions to intercept him, but he slipped 
through their fingers, and descended to Pont-de-Mont- 
vert, from whence he threw himself upon the villages 
situated near the sources of the western Gfardon. At 
the same time, to distract the attention of the Royalists, 
the other Camisard leaders descended, the one towards 
the south, and the other towards the east, disarming 
the Roman Catholics, carrying off their arms, and 
spreading consternation wherever they went. 

Meanwhile, Count Broglie, Captain Poul, Colonel 

Miral, and the commanders of the soldiers and militia 

all over the Cevennes, were hunting the Protestants 

and their families wherever found, pillaging their 

houses, driving away their cattle, and burning their 

* The " Barbets " (or " Water-dogs ") was the nickname by which 
the Vaudois were called, against whom Poul had formerly been em- 
ployed in the Italian valleys. 



INSURRECTION OF THE C AMIS ARBS. 117 



huts ; and it was evident that the war on both sides 
was fast drifting into one of reprisal and revenge. 
Brigands, belonging to neither side, organized them- 
selves in bodies, and robbed Protestants and Catholics 
with equal impartiality. 

One effect of this state of things was rapidly to 
increase the numbers of the disaffected. The dwellings 
of many of the Protestants having been destroyed, 
such of the homeless fugitives as could bear arms fled 
into the mountains to join the Camisards, whose 
numbers were thus augmented, notwithstanding tb ft 
measures taken for their extermination. 

Laporte was at last tracked by his indefatigable 
enemy, Captain Poul, who burned to wipe out the dis- 
grace which he conceived himself to have suffered at 
Champ-Domergue. Information was conveyed to him 
that Laporte and his band were in the neighbourhood 
of Molezon on the western Gardon, and that they 
intended to hold a field-meeting there on Sunday, the 
22nd of October. 

Poul made his dispositions accordingly. Dividing 
his force into two bodies, he fell upon the insurgents 
impetuously from two sides, taking them completely by 
surprise. They hastily put themselves in order of 
battle, but their muskets, wet with rain, would not 
fire, and Laporte hastened with his men to seek the 
shelter of a cliff near at hand. While in the act of 
springing from one rock to another, he was seen to 
stagger and fall. He had been shot dead by a musket 
bullet, and his career was thus brought to a sudden 
close. His followers at once fled in all directions. 

Poul cut off Laporte' s head, as well as the heads of 
the other Camisards who had been killed, and sent them 
in two baskets to Count Broglie. Next day the heads 



n8 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



were exposed on the bridge of Anduze ; the day after 
on the castle wall of St. Hypolite ; after which these 
ghastly trophies of Poul's victory were sent to Mont- 
pellier to be permanently exposed on the Peyrou. 

Such was the end of Laporte, the second leader of 
the Camisards. Seguier, the first, had been chief for 
only six days ; Laporte, the second, for only about two 
months. Again Baville supposed the pacification of 
the Cevennes to be complete. He imagined that Poul, 
in cutting off Laporte's head, had decapitated the insur- 
rection. But the Camisard ranks had never been so 
full as now, swelled as they were by the persecutions 
of the Royalists, who, by demolishing the homes of 
the peasantry, had in a measure forced them into th e 
arms of the insurgents. Nor were they ever better 
supplied with leaders, even though Laporte had fallen. 
No sooner did his death become known, than the 
"Children of God" held a solemn assembly in the 
mountains, at which Poland, Castanet, Salomon, 
Abraham, and young Cavalier were present ; and 
after lamenting the death of their chief, they with one 
accord elected Laporte's nephew, Poland, as his suc- 
cessor. 

A few words as to the associates of Poland, whose 
family and origin have already been described. Andre 
Castanet of Massavaque, in the Upper Cevennes, had 
been a goatherd in his youth, after which he worked 
at his father's trade of a wool-carder. An avowed 
Huguenot, he was, shortly after the peace of Pyswick, 
hunted out of the country because of his attending the 
meetings in the Desert; but in 1700 he returned to 
preach and to prophesy, acting also as a forest-ranger 
in the Aigoal Mountains. Of all the chiefs he was the 



INSURRECTION OF THE CAM/SARDS. 119 



greatest controversialist, and in his capacity of preacher 
he distinguished himself from his companions by wear- 
ing a wig. There must have been something comical 
in his appearance, for Brueys describes him as a little, 
squat, bandy-legged man, presenting " the figure of 
a little bear/' But it was an enemy who drew the 
picture. 

Next there was Salomon Conderc, also a wool-carder, 
a native of the hamlet of Mazelrode, south of the 
mountain of Bouges. For twenty years the Condercs, 
father and son, had been zealous worshippers in the 
Desert — Salomon having acted by turns as Bible- 
reader, precentor, preacher, and prophet. We have 
already referred to the gift of prophesying. All the 
leaders of the Camisards were prophets. Elie Marion, 
in his " Theatre Sacre<de Cevennes," thus describes the 
influence of the prophets on the Camisard War : — 

"We were without strength and without counsel," 
says he ; " but our inspirations were our succour and 
our support. They elected our leaders, and conducted 
them ; they were our military discipline. It was they 
who raised us, even weakness itself, to put a strong 
bridle upon an army of more than twenty thousand 
picked soldiers. It was they who banished sorrow from 
our hearts in the midst of the greatest peril, as well as 
in the deserts and the mountain fastnesses, when cold 
and famine oppressed us. Our heaviest crosses were but 
lightsome burdens, for this intimate communion that 
Grod allowed us to have with Him bore up and consoled 
us ; it was our safety and our happiness." 

Many of the Condercs had suffered for their faith. 
The archpriest Chayla had persecuted them grievously. 
One of their sisters was seized by the soldiery and 
carried off to be immured in a convent at Mende, but 



120 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



was rescued on the way by Salomon and his brother 
Jacques. Of the two, Salomon, though deformed, had 
the greatest gift in prophesying, and hence the choice 
of him as a leader. 

Abraham Mazel belonged to the same hamlet as 
Conderc. They were both of the same' age — about 
twenty-five — of the same trade, and they were as 
inseparable as brothers. They had both been engaged 
with Seguier's band in the midnight attack on Pont-de- 
Montvert, and were alike committed to the desperate 
enterprise they had taken in hand. The tribe of Mazel 
abounds in the Cevennes, and they had already given 
many martyrs to the cause. Some emigrated to 
America, some were sent to the galleys ; Oliver Mazel, 
the preacher, was hanged at Montpellier in 1690, 
Jacques Mazel was a refugee in London in 1701, and 
in all the combats of the Cevennes there were Mazels 
leading as well as following. 

Nicholas Joany, of Genouilliac, was an old soldier, 
who had seen much service, having been for some time 
quartermaster of the regiment of Orleans. Among 
other veterans who served with the Camisards, were 
Esperandieu and Rastelet, two old sub-officers, and 
Catinat and Ravenel, two thorough soldiers. Of these 
Catinat achieved the greatest notoriety. His proper 
name was Mauriel — Abdias Mauriel ; but having 
served as a dragoon under Marshal Catinat in Italy, 
he conceived such an admiration for that general, and 
was so constantly eulogizing him, that his comrades 
gave him the nickname of Catinat, which he continued 
to bear all through the Camisard war. 

But the most distinguished of all the Camisard 
chiefs, next to Jtoland, was the. youthful John Cavalier, 
peasant boy, baker's apprentice, and eventually 



INSURRECTION OF THE CA MIS A RES. 121 



insurgent leader, who, after baffling and repeatedly 
defeating the armies of Louis XI Y., ended his remark- 
able career as governor of Jersey and major-general in 
the British service. 

Cavalier was a native of Rlbaute, a village on the 
Gardon, a little below Anduze. His parents were 
persons in humble circumstances, as may be inferred 
from the fact that when John was of sufficient age he 
was sent into the mountains to herd cattle, and when a 
little older he was placed apprentice to a baker at 
Anduze. 

His father, though a Protestant at heart, to avoid 
persecution, pretended to be converted to Romanism, 
and attended Mass. But his mother, a fervent Calvinist, 
refused to conform, and diligently trained her sons in 
her own views. She was a regular attender of meetings 
in the Desert, to which she also took her children. 

Cavalier relates that on one occasion, when a very 
little fellow, he went with her to an assembly which 
was conducted by Claude Brousson ; and when he 
afterwards heard that many of the people had been 
apprehended for attending it, of whom some were 
hanged and others sent to the galleys, the account so 
shocked him that he felt he would then have avenged 
them if he had possessed the power. 

As the boy grew up, and witnessed the increasing 
cruelty with which conformity was enforced, he deter- 
mined to quit the country ; and, accompanied by twelve 
other young men, he succeeded in reaching Geneva 
after a toilsome journey of eight days. He had not 
been at Geneva more than two months, when — heart- 
sore, solitary, his eyes constantly turned towards his 
dear Cevennes — he accidentally heard that his father 
and mother had been thrown into prison because of his 



122 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



flight — his father at Carcassone, and his mother in the 
dreadful tower of Constance, near Aiguesmortes, one of 
the most notorious prisons of the Huguenots. 

He at once determined to return, in the hope of being 
able to get them set at liberty. On his reaching 
Bibaute, to his surprise he found them already released, 
on condition of attending Mass. As his presence in his 
father's house might only serve to bring fresh trouble 
upon them — he himself haying no intention of con- 
forming — he went up for refuge into the mountains of 
the Cevennes. 

The young Cavalier was present at the midnight 
meeting on the Bouges, at which it was determined 
to slay the archpriest Chayla. He implored leave to 
accompany the band ; but he was declared to be too 
young for such an enterprise, being a boy of only six- 
teen, so he was left behind with his friends. 

Being virtually an outlaw, Cavalier afterwards 
joined the band of Laporte, under whom he served 
as lieutenant during his short career. At his death 
the insurrection assumed larger proportions, and re- 
cruits nocked apace to the standard of Boland, 
Laporte' s successor. Harvest- work over, the youths 
of the Lower Cevennes hastened to join him, armed 
only with bills and hatchets. The people of the Vaun- 
age more than fulfilled their promise to Boland, and 
sent him five hundred men. Cavalier also brought 
with him from Bibaute a further number of recruits, 
and by the end of autumn the Camisards under arms, 
such as they were, amounted to over a thousand men. 

Boland, unable to provide quarters or commissariat 
for so large a number, divided them into five bodies, 
and sent them into their respective cantonments (so to 
speak) for the winter. Roland himself occupied the 



INSURRECTION OF THE C AMI SARDS. 123 



district known as the Lower Cevennes, comprising the 
Gardonnenque and the mountain district situated 
between the rivers Vidourle and the western Gardon. 
That part of the Upper Cevennes, which extends 
between the Anduze branch of the Gardon and the 
river Tarn, was in like manner occupied by a force 
commanded by Abraham Mazel and Solomon Conderc, 
while Andrew Castanet led the people of the western 
Cevennes, comprising the mountain region of the 
Aigoal and the Esperou, near the sources of the 
Gardon d' Anduze and the Tarnon. The rugged moun- 
tain district of the Lozere, in which the Tarn, the 
Ceze, and the Alais branch of the Gardon have their 
origin, was placed under the command of Joany. And, 
finally, the more open country towards the south, 
extending from Anduze to the sea-coast, including the 
districts around Alais, Uzes, Msmes, as well as the 
populous valley of the Vaunage, was placed under the 
direction of young Cavalier, though he had scarcely 
yet completed his seventeenth year. 

These chiefs were all elected by their followers, who 
chose them, not because of any military ability they 
might possess, but entirely because of their " gifts' ? as 
preachers and " prophets." Though Roland and Joany 
had been soldiers, they were also preachers, as were 
Castanet, Abraham, and Salomon ; and young Cavalier 
had glready given remarkable indications of the pro- 
phetic gift. Hence, when it became the duty of the 
band to which he belonged to select a chief, they 
passed over the old soldiers, Esperandieu, Easlet, 
Catinat, and Ravenel, and pitched upon the young 
baker lad of Ribaute, not because he could fight, but 
because he could preach ; and the old soldiers cheer- 
fully submitted themselves to his leadership. 



124 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



The portrait of this remarkable Camisard chief 
represents him as a little handsome youth, fair and 
ruddy complexioned, with lively and prominent blue 
eyes, and a large head, from whence his long fair hair 
hung floating over his shoulders. His companions 
recognised in him a supposed striking resemblance to 
the scriptural portrait of David, the famous shepherd 
of Israel. 

The Camisard legions, spread as they now were over 
the entire Cevennes, and embracing Lower Languedoc 
as far as the sea, were for the most part occupied during 
the winter of 1702-3 in organizing themselves, obtaining 
arms, and increasing their forces. The respective dis- 
tricts which they occupied were so many recruiting- 
grounds, and by the end of the season they had 
enrolled nearly three thousand men. They were still, 
however, very badly armed. Their weapons included 
fowling-pieces, old matchlocks, muskets taken from the 
militia, pistols, sabres, scythes, hatchets, billhooks, 
and even ploughshares. They were very short of 
powder, and what they had was mostly bought sur- 
reptitiously from the King's soldiers, or by messengers 
sent for the purpose to Nismes and Avignon. But 
Roland, finding that such sources of supply could not 
be depended upon, resolved to manufacture his own 
powder. 

A commissariat was also established, and the most 
spacious caves in the most sequestered places were 
sought out and converted into magazines, hospitals, 
granaries, cellars, arsenals, and powder factories. 
Thus Mialet, with its extensive caves, was the head- 
quarters of Roland ; Bouquet and the caves at Euzet, 
of Cavalier ; Cassagnacs and the caves at Magis- 
tavols, of Salomon ; and so on with the others. Each 



INSURRECTION OF THE CAMISARDS. 125 



chief had his respective canton, his granary, his maga- 
zine, and his arsenal. To each retreat was attached a 
special body of tradesmen — millers, bakers, shoe- 
makers, tailors, armourers, and other mechanics ; and 
each had its special guards and sentinels. 

We have already referred to the peculiar geological 
features of the Cevennes, and to the limestone strata which 
embraces the whole granitic platform of the southern 
border almost like a frame. As is almost invariably 
the case in such formations, large caves, occasioned by 
the constant dripping of water, are of frequent occur- 
rence ; and those of the Cevennes, which are in many 
places of great extent, constituted a peculiar feature in 
the Camisard insurrection. There is one of such caves 
in the neighbourhood of the Protestant town of Ganges, 
on the river Herault, which often served as a refuge for 
the Huguenots, though it is now scarcely penetrable 
because of the heavy falls of stone from the roof. This 
cavern has two entrances, one from the river Herault, 
the other from the Mendesse, and it extends under the 
entire mountain, which separates the two rivers. It is 
still known as the " Camisards' Grotto." There are 
numerous others of a like character all over the district ; 
but as those of Mialet were of special importance — Mialet, 
" the Metropolis of the Insurrection," being the head- 
quarters of Roland — it will be sufficient if we briefly 
describe a visit paid to them in the month of June, 1870. 

The town of Anduze is the little capital of the 
Gardonnenque, a district which has always been exclu- 
sively Protestant. Even at the present day, of the 
5,200 inhabitants of Anduze, 4,600 belong to that 
faith ; and these include the principal proprietors, cul- 
tivators, and manufacturers of the town and neigh- 



126 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



bourhood. During the wars of religion, Anduze was 
one of the Huguenot strongholds. After the death of 
Henry IV. the district continued to be held by the 
Due de Rohan, the ruins of whose castle are still to be 
seen on the summit of a pyramidal hill on the north of 
the town. Anduze is jammed in between the precipi- 
tous mountain of St. Julien, which rises behind it, and 
the river Gardon, along which a modern quay-wall 
extends, forming a pleasant promenade as well as a 
barrier against the furious torrents which rush down 
from the mountains in winter. 

A little above the town, the river passes through a 
rocky gorge formed by the rugged grey cliffs of Peyre- 
male on the one bank and St. Julien on the other. The 
bare precipitous rocks rise up on either side like two 
cyclopean towers, flanking the gateway of the Cevennes. 
The gorge is so narrow at bottom that there is room 
only for the river running in its rocky bed below, and a 
roadway along either bank — that on the eastern side 
having been partly formed by blasting out the cliff 
which overhangs it. 

After crossing the five-arched bridge which spans 
the Gardon, the road proceeds along the eastern bank, 
up the valley towards Mialet. It being market-day 
at Anduze, well- clad peasants were flocking into the 
town, some in their little pony-carts, others with their 
baskets or bundles of produce, and each had his "Bon 
jour, messieurs !" for us as we passed. So long as the 
road held along the bottom of the valley, passing 
through the scattered hamlets and villages north of 
the town, our little springless cart got along cleverly 
enough. But after we had entered the narrower valley 
higher up, and the cultivated ground became confined 
to a little strip along either bank, then the mountain 



INSURRECTION OF THE C AMI SARDS. 127 



barriers seemed to rise in front of us and on all sides, 
and the road became winding, steep, and difficult. 

A few miles up the valley, the little hamlet of Massou- 
beyran, consisting of a group of peasant cottages— one 
of which was the birthplace of Roland, the Camisard 
chief — was seen on a hill- side to the right ; and about 
two miles further on, at a bend of the road, we came 
in sight of the village of Mialet, with its whitewashed, 
flat-roofed cottages — forming a little group of peasants' 
houses lying in the hollow of the hills. The principal 
building in it is the Protestant temple, which continues 
to be frequented by the inhabitants ; the Annuaire Pro- 
testante for 1868-70, stating the Protestant population 
of the district to be 1,325. Strange to say, the present 
pastor, M. Seguier, bears the name of the first leader 
of the Camisard insurrection ; and one of the leading 
members of the consistory, M. Laporte, is a lineal 
descendant of the second and third leaders. 

From its secluded and secure position among the 
hills, as well as because of its proximity to the great 
Temelac road constructed by Baville, which passed 
from Anduze by St. Jean-de-Gard into the Upper 
Cevennes, Mialet was well situated as the head- 
quarters of the Camisard chief. But it was principally 
because of the numerous limestone caves abounding 
in the locality, which afforded a ready hiding- 
place for the inhabitants in the event of the enemies' 
approach, as well as because they were capable of 
being adapted for the purpose of magazines, stores, 
and hospitals, that Mialet became of so much import- 
ance as the citadel of the insurgents. One of such 
caverns or grottoes is still to be seen about a mile 
below Mialet, of extraordinary magnitude. It extends 
under the hill which rises up on the right-hand side of 



128 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



the road, and is entered from behind, nearly at the 
summit. The entrance is narrow and difficult, but the 
interior is large and spacious, widening out in some 
places into dome-shaped chambers, with stalactites hang- 
ing from the roof. The whole extent of this cavern 
cannot be much less than a quarter of a mile, judging 
from the time it took to explore it and to return from 
the furthest point in the interior to the entrance. The 
existence of this place had been forgotten until a few 
years ago, when it was rediscovered by a man of 
Anduze, who succeeded in entering it, but, being unable 
to find his way out, he remained there for three days 
without food, until the alarm was given and his friends 
came to his rescue and delivered him. 

Immediately behind the village of Mialet, under the 
side of the hill, is another large cavern, with other 
grottoes branching out of it, capable, on an emergency, 
of accommodating the whole population. This was used 
by Roland as his principal magazine. But perhaps 
the most interesting of these caves is the one used as 
a hospital for the sick and wounded. It is situated 
about a mile above Mialet, in a limestone cliff almost 
overhanging the river. The approach to it is steep 
and difficult, up a footpath cut in the face of the rock. 
At length a little platform is reached, about a hundred 
feet above the level of the river, behind which is a low 
wall extending across the entrance to the cavern. This 
wall is pierced with two openings, intended for two 
culverins, one of which commanded the road leading- 
down the pass, and the other the road up the valley 
from the direction of the village. The outer vault is 
large and roomy, and extends back into a lofty dome- 
shaped cavern about forty feet high, behind which a 
long tortuous vault extends for several hundred feet. 



INSURRECTION OF THE C AMI SARDS. 129 



The place is quite dry, and sufficiently spacious to 
accommodate a large number of persons ; and there 
can be do doubt as to the uses to which it was applied 
during the wars of the Cevennes. 

The person who guided us to the cave was an ordinary 
working man of the village- — apparently a blacksmith 
— a well-informed, intelligent person — who left his 
smithy,, opposite the Protestant temple at which our 
pony-cart drew up, to show us over the place ; and he 
took pride in relating the traditions which continue to 
be handed down from father to son relating to the great 
Camisard war of the Cevennes. 



K 



CHAPTER VH. 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 

THE country round Xismes, which was the scene of 
so many contests between the Royalists and the 
Camisard insurgents at the beginning of last century, 
presents nearly the same aspect as it did then, excepting 
that it is traversed by railways in several directions. The 
railway to Montpellier on the west, crosses the fertile 
valley of the Yaunage, " the little Canaan,'' still rich in 
vineyards as of old. That to Alais on the north, 
proceeds for the most part along the valley of the 
Grardon, the names of the successive stations reminding 
the passing traveller of the embittered contests of which 
they were the scenes in former times : Cozier es, Bou- 
coiran, Ners, Yezenobres, and Alais itself, now a con- 
siderable manufacturing town, and the centre of an 
important coal-mining district. 

The country in the neighbourhood of Nismes is by 
no means picturesque. Though undulating, it is 
barren, arid, and stony. The view from the Tour 
Magne, which is very extensive, is over an apparently 
skeleton landscape, the bare rocks rising on all sides 
without any covering of verdure. In summer the grass 
is parched and brown. There are few trees visible ; 
and these mostly mulberry, which, when cropped, have 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



a blasted look. Yet, wherever soil exists, in the 
bottoms, the land is very productive, yielding olives, 
grapes, and chestnuts in great abundance. 

As we ascend the valley of the Gardon, the country 
becomes more undulating and better wooded. The 
villages and farmhouses have all an old-fashioned look ; 
not a modern villa is to be seen. We alight from the 
train at the Ners station — Ners, where Cavalier drove 
Montrevel's army across the river, and near which, at 
the village of Martinargues, he completely defeated the 
Royalists under Lajonquiere. We went to see the scene 
of the battle, some three miles to the south-east, pass- 
ing through a well-tilled country, with the peasants 
busily at work in the fields. From the high ground 
behind Ners a fine view is obtained of the valley of the 
Gardon, overlooking the junction of its two branches 
descending by Alais and Anduze, the mountains of the 
Cevennes rising up in the distance. To the left is the 
fertile valley of Beaurivage, celebrated in the Pastorals 
of Florian, who was a native of the district. 

Descending the hill towards Ners, we were overtaken 
by an aged peasant of the village, with a scythe over 
his shoulder, returning from his morning's work. There 
was the usual polite greeting and exchange of salu- 
tations — for the French peasant is by nature polite — 
and a ready opening was afforded for conversation. It 
turned out that the old man had been a soldier of the 
first empire, and fought under Soult in the desperate 
battle of Toulouse in 1814. He was now nearly eighty, 
but was still able to do a fair day's work in the fields. 
Inviting us to enter his dwelling and partake of his 
hospitality, he went down to his cellar and fetched there- 
from a jug of light sparkling wine, of which we partook. 
In answer to an inquiry whether there were any Pro- 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



testants in the neighbourhood, the old man replied that 
Ners was " all Protestant." His grandson, however, 
who was present, qualified this sweeping statement by 
the remark, sotto voce, that many of them were 
" nothing." 

The conversation then turned upon the subject of 
Cavalier and his exploits, when our entertainer launched 
out into a description of the battle of Martinargnes, in 
which the Royalists had been " toutes abattus." Like 
most of the Protestant peasantry of the Cevennes, he 
displayed a very familiar acquaintance with the events 
of the civil war, and spoke with enthusiasm and honest 
pride of the achievements of the Camisards. 

We have in previous chapters described the outbreak 
of the insurrection and its spread throughout the Upper 
Cevennes ; and we have now rapidly to note its growth 
and progress to its culmination and fall. 

While the Camisards were secretly organizing their 
forces under cover of the woods and caves of the moun- 
tain districts, the governor of Languedoc was indulging 
in the hope that the insurrection had expired with the 
death of Laporte and the dispersion of his band. But, 
to his immense surprise, the whole country was suddenly 
covered with insurgents, who seemed as if to spring 
from the earth in all quarters simultaneously. Mes- 
sengers brought him intelligence at the same time of 
risings in the mountains of the Lozere and the Aigoal, 
in the neighbourhoods of Anduze and Alais, and even 
in the open country about Nismes and Calvisson, down 
almost to the sea-coast. 

"Wherever the churches had been used as garrisons 
and depositories of arms, they were attacked, stormed, 
and burnt. Cavalier says he never meddled with any 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



i33 



church which had not been thus converted into a " den 
of thieves ; " but the other leaders were less scrupulous. 
Salomon and Abraham destroyed all the establishments 
and insignia of their enemies on which they could lay 
hands — crosses, churches, and presbyteries. The cure 
of Saint-Germain said of Castanet in the Aigoal that he 
was " like a raging torrent." Eoland and Joany ran 
from village to village ransacking dwellings, chateaux, 
churches, and collecting arms. Knowing every foot of 
the country, they rapidly passed by mountain tracks 
from one village to another ; suddenly appearing in the 
least-expected quarters, while the troops in pursuit of 
them had passed in other directions. 

Cavalier had even the hardihood to descend upon the 
low country, and to ransack the Catholic villages in the 
neighbourhood of Msmes. By turns he fought, preached, 
and sacked churches. About the middle of November, 
1702, he preached at Aiguevives, a village not far from 
Calvisson, in the Vaunage, Count Broglie, commander 
of the royal troops, hastened from Ni sines to intercept 
him. But pursuing Cavalier was like pursuing a 
shadow ; he had already made his escape into the 
mountains. Broglie assembled the inhabitants of the 
village in the church, and demanded to be informed 
who had been present with the Camisard preacher. 
"All!" was the reply: "we are all guilty." He 
seized the principal persons of the place and sent them 
to Baville. Four were hanged, twelve were sent to the 
galleys, many more were flogged, and a heavy fine was 
levied on the entire village. 

Meanwhile, Cavalier had joined Eoland near Mialet, 
and again descended upon the low country, marching 
through the villages along the valley of the Yidourle, 
carrying off arms and devastating churches. Broglie 



J 34 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



sent two strong bodies of troops to intercept them ; 
but the light-footed insurgents had already crossed 
the Gardon. 

A few days later (December 5th), they were lying 
concealed in the forest of Vaquieres, in the neighbour- 
hood of Cavalier's head-quarters at Euzet. Their re- 
treat having been discovered, a strong force of soldiers 
and militia was directed upon them, under the com- 
mand of the Chevalier Montarnaud (who, being a new 
convert, wished to show his zeal), and Captain Bimard 
of the Msmes militia. 

They took with them a herdsman of the neighbour- 
hood for their guide, not knowing that he was a con- 
federate of the Camisards. Leading the Royalists into 
the wood, he guided them along a narrow ravine, and 
hearing no sound of the insurgents, it was supposed that 
they were lying asleep in their camp. 

Suddenly three sentinels on the outlook fired off 
their pieces. At this signal Ravenel posted himself at 
the outlet of the defile, and Cavalier and Catinat along 
its two sides. Raising their war-song, the sixty-eighth 
psalm, the Camisards furiously charged the enemy. 
Captain Bimard fell at the first fire. Montarnaud 
turned and fled with such of the soldiers and militia as 
could follow him ; and not many of them succeeded in 
making their escape from the wood. 

" After which complete victory," says Cavalier, " we 
returned to the field of battle to give our hearty thanks 
to Almighty God for his extraordinary assistance, and 
afterwards stripped the corpses of the enemy, and 
secured their arms. We found a purse of one hundred 
pistoles in Captain Bimard's pocket, which was very 
acceptable, for we stood in great need thereof, and ex- 
pended part of it in buying hats, shoes, and stockings 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



for those who wanted them, and with the remainder 
bought six great mule loads of brandy, for our winter's 
supply, from a merchant who was sending it to be sold 
at Anduze market." * 

On the Sunday following, Cavalier held an assembly 
for public worship near Monteze on the Grardon, at 
which about five hundred persons were present. The 
governor of Alais, being informed of the meeting, 
resolved to put it down with a strong hand ; and he 
set out for the purpose at the head of a force of about 
six hundred horse and foot. A mule accompanied him, 
laden with ropes with which to bind or hang the rebels. 
Cavalier had timely information, from scouts posted on 
the adjoining hills, of the approach of the governor's 
force, and though the number of fighting men in the 
Camisard assembly was comparatively small, they 
resolved to defend themselves. 

Sending away the women and others not bearing 
arms, Cavalier posted his little band behind an old en- 
trenchment on the road along which the governor was 
approaching, and awaited his attack. The horsemen 
came on at the charge ; but the Camisards, firing over 
the top of the entrenchment, emptied more than a dozen 
saddles, and then leaping forward, saluted them with a 
general discharge. At this, the horsemen turned and 
fled, galloping through the foot coming up behind 
them, and throwing them into complete disorder. The 
Camisards pulled off their coats, in order the better 
to pursue the fugitives. 

The Royalists were in full flight, when they were met 
by a reinforcement of two hundred men of Marsilly's 
regiment of foot. But these, too, were suddenly seized 
by the panic, and turned and fled with the rest, the 
* " Memoirs of the Wars of the Cevennes," p. 74. 



i 3 6 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Camisards pursuing them for nearly an hour, in the 
course of which they slew more than a hundred of the 
enemy. Besides the soldiers' clothes, of which they 
stripped the dead, the Camisards made prize of two 
loads of ammunition and a large quantity of arms, 
which they were very much in need of, and also of the 
ropes with which the governor had intended to hang 
them. 

Emboldened by these successes, Cavalier determined 
on making an attack on the strong castle of Servas, 
occupying a steep height on the east of the forest of 
Bouquet. Cavalier detested the governor and garrison 
of this place because they too closely watched his move- 
ments, and overlooked his head-quarters, which were in 
the adjoining forest ; and they had, besides, distinguished 
themselves by the ferocity with which they attacked and 
dispersed recent assemblies in the Desert. 

Cavalier was, however, without the means of directly 
assaulting the place, and he waited for an opportunity 
of entering it, if possible, by stratagem. While pass- 
ing along the road between Alais and Lussan one day, 
he met a detachment of about forty men of the royal 
army, whom he at once attacked, killing a number of 
them, and putting the rest to flight. Among the slain 
was the commanding officer of the party, in whose 
pockets was found an order signed by Count Broglie 
directing all town-majors and consuls to lodge him and 
his men along their line of march. Cavalier at once 
determined on making use of this order as a key to 
open the gates of the castle of Servas. 

He had twelve of his men dressed up in the clothes 
of the soldiers who had fallen, and six others in their 
ordinary Camisard dress bound with ropes as prisoners 
of war. Cavalier himself donned the uniform of the 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



fallen officer ; and thus disguised and well armed, the 
party moved up the steep ascent to the castle. On 
reaching the outer gate Cavalier presented the order of 
Count Broglie, and requested admittance for the purpose 
of keeping his pretended Camisard prisoners in safe 
custody for the night. He was at once admitted with 
his party. The governor showed him round the ram- 
parts, pointing out the strength of the place, and 
boasting of the punishments he had inflicted on the 
rebels. 

At supper Cavalier's soldiers took care to drop into 
the room one by one, apparently for orders, and 
suddenly, on a signal being given, the governor and 
his attendants were seized and bound. At the same 
time the guard outside was attacked and overpowered. 
The outer gates were opened, the Camisards rushed in, 
the castle was taken, and the garrison put to the 
sword. 

Cavalier and his band carried off with them to their 
magazine at Bouquet all the arms, ammunition, and 
provisions they could find, and before leaving they set 
fire to the castle. There must have been a large store 
of gunpowder in the vaults of the place besides what 
the Camisards carried away, for they had scarcely pro- 
ceeded a mile on their return journey when a tremendous 
explosion took place, shaking the ground like an earth- 
quake, and turning back, they saw the battlements of 
the detested Chateau Servas hurled into the air. 

Shortly after, Eoland repeated at Sauve, a little 
fortified town hung along the side of a rocky hill a 
few miles to the south of Anduze, the stratagem which 
Cavalier had employed at Servas, and with like success. 
He disarmed the inhabitants, and carried off the arms 
and provisions in the place ; and though he released 



138 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



the commandant and the soldiers whom he had taken 
prisoners, he shot a persecuting priest and a Capuchin 
monk, and destroyed all the insignia of Popery in 
Sauve. 

These terrible measures caused a new stampede of 
the clergy all over the Cevennes. The nobles and 
gentry also left their chateaux, the merchants their 
shops and warehouses, and took refuge in the fortified 
towns. Even the bishops of Mende, Uzes, and Alais 
barricaded and fortified their episcopal palaces, and 
organized a system of defence as if the hordes of Attila 
had been at their gates. 

With each fresh success the Camisards increased in 
daring, and every day the insurrection became more 
threatening and formidable. It already embraced the 
whole mountain district of the Cevennes, as well as a 
considerable extent of the low country between Msmes 
and Montpellier. The Camisard troops, headed by 
their chiefs, marched through the villages with drums 
beating in open day, and were quartered by billet on 
the inhabitants in like manner as the royal regiments. 
Roland levied imposts and even tithes throughout his 
district, and compelled the farmers, at the peril of their 
lives, to bring their stores of victual to the " Camp of 
the Eternal." In the midst of all, they held their 
meetings in the Desert, at which the chiefs preached, 
baptized, and administered the sacrament to their flocks. 

The constituted authorities seemed paralyzed by the 
extent of the insurrection, and the suddenness with 
which it spread. The governor of the province had so 
repeatedly reported to his royal master the pacification 
of Languedoc, that when this last and worst outbreak 
occurred he was ashamed to announce it. The peace of 
Byswick had set at liberty a large force of soldiers, who 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



had now no other occupation than to " convert " the 
Protestants and force them to attend Mass. About five 
hundred thousand men were now under arms for this 
purpose — occupied as a sort of police force, very much 
to their own degradation as soldiers. 

A large body of this otherwise unoccupied army had 
been placed under the direction of Baville for the pur- 
pose of suppressing the rebellion — an army of veteran 
horse and foot, whose valour had been tried in many 
hard-fought battles. Surely it was not to be said that 
this immense force could be baffled and defied by a few 
thousand peasants, cowherds, and wool- carders, fight- 
ing for what they ridiculously called their " rights 
of conscience ! " Baville could not believe it ; and 
he accordingly determined again to apply himself 
more vigorously than ever to the suppression of the 
insurrection, by means of the ample forces placed at 
his disposal. 

Again the troops were launched against the insur- 
gents, and again and again they were baffled in their 
attempts to overtake and crush them. The soldiers 
became worn out by forced marches, in running from one 
place to another to disperse assemblies in the Desert. 
They were distracted by the number of places in which 
the rebels made their appearance. Cavalier ran from 
town to town, making his attacks sometimes late at 
night, sometimes in the early morning ; but before the 
troops could come up he had done all the mischief he 
intended, and was perhaps fifty miles distant on another 
expedition. If the Royalists divided themselves into 
small bodies, they were in danger of being overpowered ; 
and if they kept together in large bodies, they moved 
about with difficulty, and could not overtake the in- 
surgents, " by reason," said Cavalier, " we could go 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



further in three hours than they could in a whole day ; 
regular troops not being used to march through woods 
and mountains as we did." 

At length the truth could not be concealed any 
longer. The States of Languedoe were summoned to 
meet at Montpellier, and there the desperate state of 
affairs was fully revealed. The bishops of the principal 
dioceses could with difficulty attend the meeting, and 
were only enabled to do so by the assistance of strong 
detachments of soldiers — the Camisards being masters of 
the principal roads. They filled the assembly with their 
lamentations, and declared that they had been be- 
trayed by the men in power. At their urgent solicita- 
tion, thirty-two more companies of Catholic fusiliers 
and another regiment of dragoons were ordered to be 
immediately embodied in the district. The governor 
also called to his aid an additional regiment of dragoons 
from Rouergue ; a battalion of marines from the ships- 
of- war lying at Marseilles and Toulon ; a body of 
Miguelets from Roussillon, accustomed to mountain 
warfare ; together with a large body of Irish officers 
and soldiers, part of the Irish Brigade. 

And how did it happen that the self- exiled Irish 
patriots were now in the Cevennes, helping the army of 
Louis XIV. to massacre the Camisards by way of 
teaching them a better religion ? It happened thus : 
The banishment of the Huguenots from France, and 
their appearance under William III. in Ireland to fight 
at the Boyne and Augrhim, contributed to send the 
Irish Brigade over to France — though it must be con- 
fessed that the Irish Brigade fought much better for 
Louis XIV. than they had ever done for Ireland. 

After the surrender of Limerick in 1691, the prin- 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



cipal number of the Irish followers of J ames II. de- 
clared their intention of abandoning Ireland and 
serving their sovereign's ally the King of France. 
The Irish historians allege that the number of the 
brigade at first amounted to nearly thirty thousand 
men.* Though they fought bravely for France, and 
conducted themselves valiantly in many of her great 
battles, they were unfortunately put forward to do a 
great deal of dirty work for Louis XIY. One of the 
first campaigns they were engaged in was in Savoy, 
under Catinat, in repressing the Vaudois or Barbets. 

The Yaudois peasantry were for the most part un- 
armed, and their only crime was their religion. The 
regiments of Yiscount Clare and Yiscount Dillon, 
principally distinguished themselves against the Yau- 
dois. The war was one of extermination, in which many 
of the Barbets were killed. Mr. O'Connor states that be- 
tween the number of the Alpine mountaineers cut off, 
and the extent of devastation and pillage committed 
amongst them by the Irish, Catinat's commission was 
executed with terrible fidelity ; the memory of which 
"has rendered their name and nation odious to the 
Yaudois. Six generations," he remarks, "have since 
passed away, but neither time nor subsequent calami- 
ties have obliterated the impression made by the waste 
and desolation of this military incursion." f Because 
of the outrages and destruction committed upon the 
women and children in the valleys in the absence of 
their natural defenders, the Yaudois still speak of the 
Irish as " the foreign assassins." 

The Brigade having thus faithfully served Louis XIY. 

* O'Callaghan's " History of the Irish Brigades in the service 
of France," p. 29. 
t Ibid., p. 180. 



142 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



in Piedmont, were now occupied in the same work in 
the Cevennes. The historian of the Brigade does not 
particularise the battles in which they were engaged 
with the Camisards, but merely announces that "on 
several occasions, the Irish appear to have distinguished 
themselves, especially their officers." 

"When Cavalier heard of the vast additional forces 
about to be thrown into the Cevennes, he sought to 
effect a diversion by shifting the theatre of war. March- 
ing down towards the low country with about two 
hundred men, he went from village to village in the 
Yaunage, holding assemblies of the people. His where- 
abouts soon became known to the Royalists, and Captain 
Bonnafoux, of the Calvisson militia, hearing that 
Cavalier was preaching one day at the village of St. 
Comes, hastened to capture him. 

Bonnafoux had already distinguished himself in the 
preceding year, by sabring two assemblies surprised by 
him at Yauvert and Caudiac, and his intention now was 
to serve Cavalier and his followers in like manner. 
Galloping up to the place of meeting, the Captain was 
challenged by the Camisard sentinel ; and his answer 
was to shoot the man dead with his pistol. The report 
alarmed the meeting, then occupied in prayer; but 
rising from their knees, they at once formed in line 
and advanced to meet the foe, who turned and fled at 
their first discharge. 

Cavalier next went southward to Caudiac, where he 
waited for an opportunity of surprising Aimargues, and 
putting to the sword the militia, who had long been 
the scourge of the Protestants in that quarter. He 
entered the latter town on a fair day, and walked about 
amongst the people ; but, finding that his intention was 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



known, and that his enterprise was not likely to succeed, 
he turned aside and resolved upon another course. 
But first it was necessary that his troops should be 
supplied with powder and ammunition, of which they 
had run short. So, disguising himself as a merchant, 
and mounted on a horse with capacious saddlebags, he 
rode off to Nismes, close at hand, to buy gunpowder. 
He left his men in charge of his two lieutenants, 
Ravanel and Catinat, who prophesied to him that 
during his absence they would fight a battle and 
win a victory. 

Count Broglie had been promptly informed by the 
defeated Captain Bonnafoux that the Camisards were 
in the neighbourhood ; and he set out in pursuit 
of them with a strong body of horse and foot. After 
several days' search amongst the vineyards near Msmes 
and the heathery hills about Milhaud, Broglie learnt 
that the Camisards were to be found at Caudiac. But 
when he reached that place he found the insurgents had 
already left, and taken a northerly direction. Broglie 
followed their track, and on the following day came up 
with them at a place called Mas de Gaffarel, in the Yal 
de Bane, about three miles west of Nismes. The 
Royalists consisted of two hundred militia, commanded 
by the Count and his son, and two troops of dragoons, 
under Captain la Dourville and the redoubtable Captain 
Poul. 

The Camisards had only time to utter a short prayer, 
and to rise from their knees and advance singing their 
battle psalm, when Poul and his dragoons were upon 
them. Their charge was so furious that Ravanel and 
his men were at first thrown into disorder; but 
rallying, and bravely fighting, they held their ground. 
Captain Poul was brought to the ground by a stone 



i44 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



hurled from a sling by a young Yauvert miller named 
Samuelet ; Count Broglie himself was wounded by a 
musket-ball, and many of bis dragoons lay stretched 
on the field. Catinat observing the fall of Poul, rushed 
forward, cut off his head with a sweep of his sabre, and 
mounting Poul's horse, almost alone chased the Royalists, 
now flying in all directions. Broglie did not draw 
breath until he had reached the secure shelter of the 
castle of Bernis. 

While these events were in progress, Cavalier was 
occupied on his mission of buying gunpowder in 
Nismes. He was passing along the Esplanade — then, 
as now, a beautiful promenade — when he observed from 
the excitement of the people, running about hither and 
thither, that something alarming had occurred. On 
making inquiry he was told that " the Barbets " were 
in the immediate neighbourhood, and it was even 
feared they would enter and sack the city. Shortly 
after, a trooper was observed galloping towards them 
at full speed along the Montpellier Eoad, without arms 
or helmet. He was almost out of breath when he came 
up, and could only exclaim that "All is lost ! Count 
Broglie and Captain Poul are killed, and the Barbets 
are pursuing the remainder of the royal troops into 
the city ! " 

The gates were at once ordered to be shut and barri- 
caded ; the generate was beaten ; the troops and militia 
were mustered ; the priests ran about in the streets 
crying, "We are undone !" Some of the Roman 
Catholics even took shelter in the houses of the Protest- 
ants, calling upon them to save their lives. But the 
night passed, and with it their alarm, for the Canri- 
sards did not make their appearance. Next morning 
a message arrived from Count Broglie, shut up in 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER, 



the castle of Bernis, ordering the garrison to come to 
his relief. 

In the meantime, Cavalier, with the assistance of his 
friends in Msmes, had obtained the articles of which he 
was in need, and prepared to set out on his return 
journey. The governor and his detachment were 
issuing from the western gate as he left, and he 
accompanied them part of the way, still disguised as a 
merchant, and mounted on his horse, with a large 
portmanteau behind him, and saddle-bags on either side 
full of gunpowder and ammunition. The Camisard 
chief mixed with the men, talking with them freely 
about the Barbets and their doings. When he came to 
the St. Hypolite road he turned aside; but they 
warned him that if he went that way he would 
certainly fall into the hands of the Barbets, and lose 
not only his horse and his merchandise, but hie life. 
Cavalier thanked them for their advice, but said he was 
not afraid of the Barbets, and proceeded on his way, 
shortly rejoining his troop at the appointed rendezvous. 

The Camisards crossed the Gardon by the bridge of 
St. Nicholas, and were proceeding towards their head- 
quarters at Bouquet, up the left bank of the river, when 
an attempt was made by the Chevalier de St. Chaptes, 
at the head of the militia of the district, to cut off their 
retreat. But Eavanel charged them with such fury as 
to drive the greater part into the Gardon, then swollen 
by a flood, and those who did not escape by swimming 
were either killed or drowned. 

Thus the insurrection seemed to grow, notwithstand- 
ing all the measures taken to repress it. The number 
of soldiers stationed in the province was from time to 
time increased; they were scattered in detachments 
all over the country, and the Camisards took care to 

L 



,6 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



give them but few opportunities of exhibiting their 
force, and then only when at a comparative disad- 
vantage. The Royalists, at their wits' end, considered 
what was next to be done in order to the pacification 
of the country. The simple remedy, they knew, was 
to allow these poor simple people to worship in their 
own way without molestation. Grant them this pri- 
vilege, and they were at any moment ready to lay down 
their arms, and resume their ordinary peaceful pursuits. 

But this was precisely what the King would not 
allow. To do so would be an admission of royal falli- 
bility which neither he nor his advisers were prepared 
to make. To enforce conformity on his subjects, Louis 
XIY. had already driven some half- a -million of the best 
of them into exile, besides the thousands who had 
perished on gibbets, in dungeons, or at the galleys. 
And was he now to confess, by granting liberty of 
worship to these neatherds, carders, and peasants, that 
the vigorous policy of "the Most Christian King" had 
Deen an entire mistake ? 

It was resolved, therefore, that no such liberty should 
be granted, and that these peasants, like the rest of the 
King's subjects, were to be forced, at the sword's point 
if necessary, to worship God in his way, and not in 
theirs. Viewed in this light, the whole proceeding 
would appear to be a ludicrous absurdity, but for its 
revolting impiety and the abominable cruelties with 
which it was accompanied. Yet the Royalists even 
blamed themselves for the mercy which they had 
hitherto shown to the Protestant peasantry ; and the 
more virulent amongst them urged that the whole of 
the remaining population that would not at once con- 
form to the Church of Rome, should forthwith be put 
to the sword ! 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 147 

Brigadier Julien, an apostate Protestant, who had 
served under William of Orange in Ireland, and after- 
wards under the Duke of Savoy in Piedmont, disap- 
pointed with the slowness of his promotion, had taken 
service under Louis XIY., and was now employed as a 
partizan chief in the suppression of his former co- 
religionists in Languedoc. Like all renegades, he was 
a bitter and furious persecutor ; and in the councils of 
Baville his voice was always raised for the extremest 
measures. He would utterly exterminate the insur- 
gents, and, if necessary, reduce the country to a desert. 
" It is not enough," said he, " merely to kill those bear- 
ing arms ; the villages which supply the combatants, 
and which give them shelter and sustenance, ought to 
be burnt down: thus only can the insurrection be 
suppressed." 

In a military point of view Julien was probably 
right ; but the savage advice startled even Baville. 
" Nothing can be easier," said he, " than to destroy the 
towns and villages ; but this would be to make a desert 
of one of the finest and most productive districts of 
Languedoc." Yet Baville himself eventually adopted 
the very policy which he now condemned. 

In the first place, however, it was determined to 
pursue and destroy Cavalier and his band. Eight 
hundred men, under the Count de Touman, were posted 
at Uzes ; two battalions of the regiment of Hainault, 
under Julien, at Anduze ; while Broglie, with a strong 
body of dragoons and militia, commanded the passes at 
St. Ambrose. These troops occupied, as it were, the 
three sides of a triangle, in the centre of which Cavalier 
was known to be in hiding in the woods of Bouquet. 
Converging upon him simultaneously, they hoped to 
surround and destroy him. 



4 8 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



But the Camisard chief was well advised of their 
movements. To draw them away from his magazines, 
Cavalier marched boldly to the north, and slipping 
through between the advancing forces, he got into 
Broglie's rear, and set fire to two villages inhabited by 
Catholics. The three bodies at once directed them- 
selves upon the burning villages ; but when they reached 
them Cavalier had made his escape, and was nowhere 
to be heard of. For four days they hunted the country 
between the Gardon and the Ceze, beating the woods 
and exploring the caves ; and then they returned, 
harassed and vexed, to their respective quarters. 

While the Royalists were thus occupied, Cavalier fell 
upon a convoy of provisions which Colonel Marsilly 
was leading to the castle of Mendajols, scattered and 
killed the escort, and carried off the mules and their 
loads to the magazines at Bouquet. During the whole 
of the month of January, the Camisards, notwithstanding 
the inclemency of the weather, were constantly on the 
move, making their appearance in the most unexpected 
quarters ; Roland descending from Mialet on Anduze, 
and rousing Broglie from his slumbers by a midnight 
fusillade ; Castanet attacking St. Andre, and making a 
bonfire of the contents of the church ; J oany disarming 
Genouillac ; and Lafleur terrifying the villages of the 
Lozere almost to the gates of Mende. 

Although the winters in the South of France, along 
the shores of the Mediterranean, are comparatively 
mild and genial, it is very different in the mountain 
districts of the interior, where the snow lies thick upon 
the ground, and the rivers are bound up by frost. 
Cavalier, in his Memoirs, describes the straits to which 
his followers were reduced in that inclement season, 
being " destitute of houses or beds, victuals, bread, or 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



money, and left to struggle with hunger, cold, snow, 
misery, and poverty." 

" General Broglie," he continues, " believed and hoped that 
though he . had not been able to destroy us with the sword, yet the 
insufferable miseries of the winter would do him that good office. Yet 
G-od Almighty prevented it through his power, and by unexpected 
means his Providence ordered the thing so well that at the end of the 
winter we found ourselves in being, and in a better condition than we 

expected As for our retiring places, we were used in the 

night-time to go into hamlets or sheepfolds built in or near the woods, 
and thought ourselves happy when we lighted upon a stone or piece 
of timber to make our pillows withal, and a little straw or dry leaves 
to lie upon in our clothes. We did in this condition sleep as gently 
and soundly as if we had lain upon a down bed. The weather being 
extremely cold, we had a great occasion for fire ; but residing mostly 
in woods, we used to get great quantity of faggots and kindle them, 
and so sit round about them and warm ourselves. In this manner we 
spent a quarter of a year, running up and down, sometimes one way 
and sometimes another, through great forests and upon high moun- 
tains, in deep snow and upon ice. And notwithstanding the sharpness 
of the weather, the small stock of our provisions, and the marches and 
counter-marches we were continually obliged to make, and which 
gave us but seldom the opportunity of washing the only shirt we 
had upon our back, not one amongst us fell sick. One might have 
perceived in our visage a complexion as fresh as if we had fed 
upon the most delicious meats, and at the end of the season we 
found ourselves in a good disposition heartily to commence the 
following campaign."* 

The campaign of 1703, the third year of the insur- 
rection, began unfavourably for the Camisards. The 
ill-success of Count Broglie as commander of the royal 
forces in the Cevennes, determined Louis XIY. — from 
whom the true state of affairs could no longer be con- 
cealed — to supersede him by Marshal Montrevel, one of 
the ablest of his generals. The army of Languedoc 
was again reinforced by ten thousand of the best soldiers 
of France, drawn from the armies of Germany and Italy. 
It now consisted of three regiments of dragoons and 
twenty-four battalions of foot — of the Irish Brigade, the 
Miguelets, and the Languedoc fusiliers — which, with 

* Cavalier's " Memoirs of the Wars of the Cevennes," pp. 
111—114. 



150 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



the local militia, constituted an effective force of not 
less than sixty thousand men ! 

Such was the irresistible army, commanded by a 
marshal of France, three lieutenant-generals, three 
major-generals, arid three brigadier- generals, now 
stationed in Languedoc, to crush the peasant insur- 
rection. INTo wonder that the Camisard chiefs were 
alarmed when the intelligence reached them of this 
formidable force having been set in motion for their 
destruction. 

The first thing they determined upon was to effect a 
powerful diverson, and to extend, if possible, the area 
of the insurrection. For this purpose, Cavalier, at the 
head of eight hundred men, accompanied by thirty 
baggage mules, set out in the beginning of February, 
with the object of raising the Viverais, the north-eastern 
quarter of Languedoc,where the Camisards had nume- 
rous partizans.' The snow was lying thick upon the 
ground when they set out ; but the little army pushed 
northward, through Eochegude and Barjac. At the 
town of Vagnas they found their way barred by a body 
of six hundred militia, under the Count de Roure. 
These they attacked with great fury and speedily put 
to flight. 

But behind the Camisards was a second and much 
stronger royalist force, eighteen hundred men, under 
Brigadier Julien, who had hastened up from Lussan 
upon Cavalier's track, and now hung upon his rear in 
the forest of Vagnas. Next morning the Camisards 
accepted battle, fought with their usual bravery, but 
having been trapped into an ambuscade, they were 
overpowered by numbers, and at length broke and fled 
in disorder, leaving behind them their mules, baggage, 
seven drums, and a quantity of arms, with some two 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



hundred dead and wounded. Cavalier himself escaped 
with difficulty, and, after having been given up for lost, 
reached the rendezvous at Bouquet in a state of com- 
plete exhaustion, Eavanel and Catinat having preceded 
him thither with the remains of his broken army. 

Eoland and Cavalier now altered their tactics. They 
resolved to avoid pitched battles such as that at Yagnas, 
where they were liable to be crushed at a blow, and to 
divide their forces into small detachments constantly 
on the move, harassing the enemy, interrupting their 
communications, and falling upon detached bodies 
whenever an opportunity for an attack presented 
itself. 

To the surprise of Montrevel, who supposed the 
Camisards finally crushed at Yagnas, the intelligence 
suddenly reached him of a multitude of attacks on 
fortified posts, burning of chateaux and churches, cap- 
tures of convoys, and defeats of detached bodies of 
Eoyalists. 

Joany attacked Grenouillac, cut to pieces the militia 
who defended it, and carried off their arms and ammuni- 
tion, with other spoils, to the camp at Faux-des-Armes, 
Shortly after, in one of his incursions, he captured a 
convoy of forty mules laden with cloth, wine, and pro- 
visions for Lent ; and, though hotly pursued by a much 
superior force, he succeeded in making his escape into 
the mountains. 

Castanet was not less active in the west — sacking 
and burning Catholic villages, and putting their in- 
habitants to the sword by way of reprisal for similar 
atrocities committed by the Eoyalists. At the same 
time, Montrevel pillaged and burned Euzet and St. Jean 
de Ceirarges, villages inhabited by Protestants ; and 
there was not a hamlet but was liable at any moment 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



to be sacked and destroyed by one or other of the con- 
tending parties. 

Nor was Eoland idle. Being greatly in want of 
arms and ammunition, as well as of shoes and clothes 
for his men, he collected a considerable force, and made 
a descent, for the purpose of obtaining them, on the 
rich and populous towns of the south ; more particularly 
on the manufacturing town of Ganges, where the Cami- 
sards had many friends. Although Roland, to divert 
the attention of Montrevel from Ganges, sent a detach- 
ment of his men into the neighbourhood of Msmes to 
raise the alarm there, it was not long before a large 
royalist force was directed against him. 

Hearing that Montrevel was marching upon Ganges, 
Roland hastily left for the north, but was overtaken 
near Pompignan by the marshal at the head of an army 
of regular horse and foot, including several regiments 
of local militia, Miguelets, marines, and Irish. The 
Royalists were posted in such a manner as to surround 
the Camisards, who, though they fought with their 
usual impetuosity, and succeeded in breaking through 
the ranks of their enemies, suffered a heavy loss in 
dead and wounded. Roland himself escaped with diffi- 
culty, and with his broken forces fled through Durfort 
to his stronghold at Mialet. 

After the battle, Marshal Montrevel returned to 
Ganges, where he levied a fine of ten thousand livres 
on the Protestant population, giving up their houses to 
pillage, and hanging a dozen of those who had been the 
most prominent in abetting the Camisards during their 
recent visit. At the same time, he reported to head- 
quarters at Paris that he had entirely destroyed the 
rebels, and that Languedoc was now " pacified." 

Much to his surprise, however, not many weeks 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



elapsed before Cavalier, who had been laid up by the 
small-pox during Roland's expedition to Ganges, again 
appeared in the field, attacking convoys, entering the 
villages and carrying off arms, and spreading terror 
anew to the very gates of Msmes. He returned north- 
wards by the valley of the Rhone, driving before him 
flocks and herds for the provisioning of his men, and 
reached his retreat at Bouquet in safety. Shortly 
after, he issued from it again, and descended upon Mrs, 
where he destroyed a detachment of troops under 
Colonel de Jarnaud ; next day he crossed the Gardon, 
and cut up a reinforcement intended for the garrison 
of Sommieres ; and the day after he was heard of in 
another place, attacking a convoy, and carrying off 
arms, ammunition, and provisions. 

Montrevel was profoundly annoyed at the failure of 
his efforts thus far to suppress the insurrection. It 
even seemed to increase and extend with every new 
measure taken to crush it. A marshal of France, at 
the head of sixty thousand men, he feared lest he should 
lose credit with his friends at court unless he were able 
at once to root out these miserable cowherds and wool- 
carders who continued to bid defiance to the royal 
authority which he represented ; and he determined to 
exert himself with renewed vigour to exterminate them 
root and branch. 

In this state of irritation the intelligence was one 
day brought to the marshal while sitting over his wine 
after dinner at Msmes, that an assembly of Huguenots 
was engaged in worship in a mill situated on the canal 
outside the Port-des-Carmes. He at once ordered out 
a battalion of foot, marched on the mill, and surrounded 
it. The soldiers burst open the door, and found from 
two to three hundred women f children, and old men 



154- 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



engaged in prayer ; and proceeded to put them to the 
sword. But the marshal, impatient at the slowness of 
the butchery, ordered the men to desist and to fire the 
place. This order was obeyed, and the building, being 
for the most part of wood, was soon wrapped in flames, 
from amidst which rose the screams of women and 
children. All who tried to escape were bayoneted, or 
driven back into the burning mill. Every soul perished 
— all excepting a girl, who was rescued by one of 
Montrevel's servants. But the pitiless marshal ordered 
both the girl and her deliverer to be put to death. The 
former was hanged forthwith, but the lackey's life 
was spared at the intercession of some sisters of mercy 
accidentally passing the place. 

In the same savage and relentless spirit, Montrevel 
proceeded to extirpate the Huguenots wherever found. 
He caused all suspected persons in twenty-two parishes 
in the diocese of Nismes to be seized and carried off. 
The men were transported to North America, and the 
women and children imprisoned in the fortresses of 
Boussillon. 

But the most ruthless measures were those which 
were adopted in the Upper Cevennes : there nothing 
short of devastation would satisfy the marshal. Thirty- 
two parishes were completely laid waste ; the cattle, 
grain, and produce which they contained were seized 
and carried into the towns of refuge garrisoned by the 
Royalists — Alais, Anduze, Florae, St. Hypolite, and 
Nismes — so that nothing should be left calculated to 
give sustenance to the rebels. Four hundred and sixty- 
six villages and hamlets were reduced to mere heaps of 
ashes and blackened ruins, and such of their inhabitants 
as were not slain by the soldiery fled with their families 
into the wilderness. 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



i55 



All the principal villages inhabited by the Protestants 
were thus completely destroyed, together with their 
mills and barns, and every building likely to give them 
shelter. Mialet was sacked and burnt — Roland, still 
suffering from his wounds, being unable to strike a 
blow in defence of his stronghold. St. Julien was also 
plundered and levelled, and its inhabitants carried cap- 
tive to Montpellier, where the women and children were 
imprisoned, and the men sent to the galleys. 

When Cavalier heard of the determination of Mont- 
revel to make a desert of the country, he sent word to 
him that for every Huguenot village destroyed he would 
destroy two inhabited by the Romanists. Thus the 
sacking and burning on the one side was immediately 
followed by increased sacking and burning on the other. 
The war became one of mutual destruction and exter- 
mination, and the unfortunate inhabitants on both 
sides were delivered over to all the horrors of civil 
war. 

So far, however, from the Camisards being suppressed, 
the destruction of the dwellings of the Huguenots only 
served to swell their numbers, and they descended from 
their mountains upon the Catholics of the plains in in- 
creasing force and redoubled fury. Montlezan was 
utterly destroyed — all but the church, which was 
strongly barricaded, and resisted Cavalier's attempts to 
enter it. Aurillac, also, was in like manner sacked and 
gutted, and the destroying torrent swept over all the 
towns and villages of the Cevennes. 

Cavalier was so ubiquitous, so daring, and often so 
successful in his attacks, that of all the Camisard leaders 
he was held to be the most dangerous, and a high price 
was accordingly set upon his head by the governor. 
Hence many attempts were made to betray him. He 



156 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



was haunted by spies, some of whom even succeeded 
in obtaining admission to bis ranks. ]\Iore than once 
tbe spies were detected — it was pretended through pro- 
phetic influence — and immediately shot. But on one 
occasion Cavalier and his whole force narrowly 
escaped destruction through the betrayal of a pre- 
tended follower. 

While the Royalists were carrying destruction through 
the villages of the Upper Cevennes, Cavalier, Salomon, 
and Abraham, in order to divert them from their pur- 
pose, resolved upon another descent into the low country, 
now comparatively ungarrisoned. "With this object 
they gathered together some fifteen hundred men, and 
descended from the mountains by Collet, intending to 
cross the Grardon at Beaurivage. On Sunday, the 29th 
of April, they halted in the wood of Malaboissiere, a 
little north of Mialet, for a day's preaching and wor- 
ship ; and after holding three services, which were 
largely attended, they directed their steps to the Tower 
of Belliot, a deserted farmhouse on the south of the 
present high road between Alais and Anduze. 

The house had been built on the ruins of a feudal 
castle, and took its name from one of the old towers 
still standing. It was surrounded by a dry stone wall, 
forming a court, the entrance to which was closed by 
hurdles. On their arrival at this place late at night, 
the Camisards partook of the supper which had been 
prepared for them by their purveyor on the occasion 
— a miller of the neighbourhood, named Gruignon — 
whose fidelity was assured not only by his apparent 
piety, but by the circumstance that two of his sons 
belonged to Cavalier's band. 

No sooner, however, had the Camisards lain down to 
sleep than the miller, possessed by the demon of gold, 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



i57 



set out directly for Alais, about three miles distant, and, 
reaching the quarters of Montrevel, sold the secret ct 
Cavalier's sleeping-place to the marshal for fifty pieces 
of gold, and together with it the lives of his own sons 
and their fifteen hundred companions. 

The marshal forthwith mustered all the available 
troops in Alais, consisting of eight regiments of foot 
(of which one was Irish) and two of dragoons, and set 
out at once for the Tower of Belliot, taking the pre- 
caution to set a strict guard upon all the gates, to pre- 
vent the possibility of any messenger leaving the place 
to warn Cavalier of his approach. The Royalists crept 
towards the tower in three bodies, so as to cut off their 
retreat in every direction. Meanwhile, the Camisards, 
unapprehensive of danger, lay wrapped in slumber, 
filling the tower, the barns, the stables, and out- 
houses. 

The night was dark, and favoured the Royalists' ap- 
proach. Suddenly, one of their divisions came upon 
the advanced Camisard sentinels. They fired, but were 
at once cut down. Those behind fled back to the 
sleeping camp, and raised the cry of alarm. Cavalier 
started up, calling his men "to arms," and, followed 
by about four hundred, he precipitated himself on the 
heads of the advancing columns. Driven back, they 
rallied again, more troops coming up to their support, 
and again they advanced to the attack. 

To his dismay, Cavalier found the enemy in over- 
whelming force, enveloping his whole position. By 
great efforts he held them back until some four or five 
hundred more of his men had joined him, and then he 
gave way and retired behind a ravine or hollow, pro- 
bably forming part of the fosse of the ancient chateau. 
Having there rallied his followers, he recrossed the 



158 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



ravine to make another desperate effort to relieve the 
remainder of his troop shut up in the tower. 

A desperate encounter followed, in the midst of 
which two of the royalist columns, mistaking each 
other for enemies in the darkness, fired into each other 
and increased the confusion and the carnage. The 
moon rose on this dreadful scene, and revealed to the 
Royalists the smallness of the force opposed to them. 
The struggle was renewed again and again ; Cavalier 
still seeking to relieve those shut up in the tower, 
and the Royalists, now concentrated and in force, to 
surround and destroy him. 

At length, after the struggle had lasted for about 
five hours, Cavalier, in order to save the rest of his 
men, resolved on retiring before daybreak ; and he 
succeeded in effecting his retreat without being pur- 
sued by the enemy. 

The three hundred Camisards who continued shut 
up in the tower refused to surrender. They trans- 
formed the ruin into a fortress, barricading every en- 
trance, and firing from every loophole. When their 
ammunition was expended, they hurled stones, joists, 
and tiles down upon their assailants from the summit 
of the tower. For four more hours they continued to 
hold out. Cannon were sent for from Alais, to blow in 
the doors ; but before they arrived all was over. The 
place had been set on fire by hand grenades, and the 
imprisoned Camisards, singing psalms amidst the flames 
to their last breath, perished to a man. 

This victory cost Montrevel dear. He lost some 
twelve hundred dead and wounded before the fatal 
Tower of Belliot ; whilst Cavalier's loss was not less 
than four hundred dead, of whom a hundred and 
eighteen were found at daybreak along the brink of the 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



ravine. One of these was mistaken for the body of 
Cavalier ; on which Montrevel, with characteristic 
barbarity, ordered the head to be cut off and sent to 
Cavalier's mother for identification ! 

From the slight glimpses we obtain of the man 
Montrevel in the course of these deplorable transactions, 
there seems to have been something ineffably mean and 
spiteful in his nature. Thus, on another occasion, in a 
fit of rage at having been baffled by the young Camisard 
leader, he dispatched a squadron of dragoons to Bibaute 
for the express purpose of pulling down the house in 
which Cavalier had been born ! 

A befitting sequel to this sanguinary struggle at the 
Tower of Belliot was the fate of Guignon, the miller, 
who had betrayed the sleeping Camisards to Montrevel. 
His crime was discovered. The gold was found upon 
him. He was tried, and condemned to death. The 
Camisards, under arms, assembled to see the sentence 
carried out. They knelt round the doomed man, while 
the prophets by turn prayed for his soul, and implored 
the clemency of the Sovereign Judge. Guignon pro- 
fessed the utmost contrition, besought the pardon of 
his brethren, and sought leave to embrace for the last 
time his two sons — privates in the Camisard ranks. 
The two young men, however, refused the proffered 
embrace with a gesture of apparent disgust ; and they 
looked on, the sad and stern spectators of the traitor's 
pimishment. 

Again Montrevel thought he had succeeded in crush- 
ing the insurrection, and that he had cut off its head 
with that of the Camisard chief. But his supposed dis- 
covery of the dead body proved an entire mistake ; 
and not many days elapsed before Cavalier made his 
appearance before the gates of Alais, and sent in a 



i6o 



THE HUGUEXOTS. 



challenge to the governor to come out and fight him. 
And it is to be observed that by this time a fiercely 
combative spirit, of righting for fighting's sake, began 
to show itself among the Camisards. Thus, Castanet 
appeared one day before the gates of Meyreuis, where 
the regiment of Cordes was stationed, and challenged 
the colonel to come out and fight him in the open ; but 
the challenge was declined. On another occasion, 
Cavalier in like manner challenged the commander of 
Vic to bring out thirty of his soldiers and fight thirty 
Camisards. The challenge was accepted, and the battle 
took place ; they fought until ten men only remained 
alive on either side, but the Camisards were masters 
of the field. 

Montrevel only redoubled his efforts to exterminate 
the Camisards. He had no other policy. In the 
summer of 1703 the Pope (Clement XI.) came to his 
assistance, issuing a bull against the rebels as being of 
" the execrable race of the ancient Albigenses," and 
promising " absolute and general remission of sins "to 
all such as should join the holy militia of Louis XI Y. 
in " exterminating the cursed heretics and miscreants, 
enemies alike of God and of Caesar." 

A special force was embodied with this object — the 
Florentines, or " "White Camisards " — distinguished by 
the white cross which they wore in front of their hats. 
They were for the most part composed of desperadoes 
and miscreants, and went about pillaging and bui-ning, 
with so little discrimination between friend and foe, 
that the Catholics themselves implored the marshal to 
suppress them. These Florentines were the perpe- 
trators of such barbarities that Roland determined to 
raise a body of cavalry to hunt them down ; and with 
that object, Catinat, the old dragoon, went down to the 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 161 



Camargues — a sort of island-prairies lying between the 
mouths of the Rhone — where the Arabs had left a 
hardy breed of horses ; and there he purchased some 
two hundred steeds wherewith to mount the Camisard 
horse, to the command of which Catinat was himself 
appointed. 

It is unnecessary to particularise the variety of com- 
bats, of marchings and countermarchings, which 
occurred during the progress of the insurrection. 
Between the contending parties, the country was 
reduced to -a desert. Tillage ceased, for there was no 
certainty of the cultivator reaping the crop ; more 
likely it would be carried off or burnt by the conflict- 
ing armies. Beggars and vagabonds wandered about 
robbing and plundering without regard to party 
or religion ; and social security was entirely at an 
end. 

Meanwhile, Montrevel still called for more troops. 
Of the twenty battalions already entrusted to him, more 
than one-third had perished ; and still the insurrection 
was not suppressed. He hoped, however, that the work 
was now accomplished ; and, looking to the wasted con- 
dition of the country, that the famine and cold of the 
winter of 1703-4 would complete the destruction of 
such of the rebels as still survived. 

During the winter, however, the Camisard chiefs had 
not only been able to keep their forces together, but to 
lay up a considerable store of provisions and ammuni- 
tion, principally by captures from the enemy ; and in 
the following spring they were in a position to take the 
field in even greater force than ever. They, indeed, 
opened the campaign by gaining two important victories 
over the Royalists ; but though they were their greatest, 
they were also nearly their last. 

M 



i6z 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



The battle of Martinargues was the Cannse of the 
Camisards. It was fought near the village of that 
name, not far from Ners, early in the spring of 1704. 
The campaign had been opened by the Florentines, 
who, now that they had made a desert of the Upper 
Cevennes, were burning and ravaging the Protestant 
villages of the plain. Cavalier had put himself on their 
track, and pursued and punished them so severely, that 
in their distress they called upon Montrevel to help 
them, informing him of the whereabouts of the 
Camisards. 

A strong royalist force of horse and foot was imme- 
diately sent in pursuit, under the command of Brigadier 
Lajonquiere. He first marched upon the Protestant 
village of Lascours, where Cavalier had passed the 
previous night. The brigadier severely punished the 
inhabitants for sheltering the Camisards, putting to 
death four persons, two of them girls, whom he suspected 
to be Cavalier's prophetesses. On the people refusing 
to indicate the direction in which the Camisards had 
gone, he gave the village up to plunder, and the 
soldiers passed several hours ransacking the place, in 
the course of which they broke open and pillaged 
the wine-cellars. 

Meanwhile, Cavalier and his men had proceeded in a 
northerly direction, along the right bank of the little 
river Droude, one of the affluents of the Gardon. A 
messenger from Lascours overtook him, telling him of 
the outrages committed on the inhabitants of the vil- 
lage ; and shortly after, the inhabitants of Lascours 
themselves came up — men, women, and children, who 
had been driven from their pillaged homes by the 
royalist soldiery. Cavalier was enraged at the recital 
of their woes ; and though his force was not one -sixth 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 



the strength of the enemy, he determined to meet their 
advance and give them battle. 

Placing the poor people of Lascours in safety, 
the Camisard leader took up his position on a rising 
ground at the head of a little valley close to the 
village of Martinargues. Cavalier himself occupied 
the centre, his front being covered by a brook running 
in the hollow of a ravine. Ravanel and Catinat, 
with a small body of men, were posted along the 
two sides of the valley, screened by brushwood. 
The approaching Royalists, seeing before them only 
the feeble force of Cavalier, looked upon his capture 
as certain. 

" See ! " cried Lajonquiere, " at last we have hold of 
the Barbets we have been so long looking for ! " With 
his dragoons in the centre, flanked by the grenadiers 
and foot, the Royalists advanced with confidence to the 
charge. At the first volley, the Camisarcls prostrated 
themselves, and the bullets went over their heads. 
Thinking they had fallen before his fusillade, the com- 
mander ordered his men to cross the ravine and fall 
upon the remnant with the bayonet. Instantly, how- 
ever, Cavalier's men started to their feet, and smote 
the assailants with a deadly volley, bringing down men 
and horses. At the same moment, the two wings, until 
then concealed, fired down upon the Royalists and com- 
pleted their confusion. The Camisards, then raising 
their battle-psalm, rushed forward and charged the 
enemy. The grenadiers resisted stoutly, but after a 
few minutes the entire body — dragoons, grenadiers, 
marines, and Irish — fled down the valley towards the 
Gardon, and the greater number of those who were not 
killed were drowned, Lajonquiere himself escaping with 
difficulty. 



164 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



In tnis battle perished a colonel, a major, thirty- 
three captains and lieutenants, and four hundred and 
fifty men, while Cavalier's loss was only about twenty 
killed and wounded. A great booty was picked up on 
the field, of gold, silver, jewels, ornamented swords, 
magnificent uniforms, scarfs, and clothing, besides 
horses, as well as the plunder brought from Lascours. 

The opening of the Lascours wine-cellars proved 
the ruin of the Loyalists, for many of the men 
were so drunk that they were unable either to 
fight or fly. After returning thanks to God on 
the battle-field, Cavalier conducted the rejoicing 
people of Lascours back to their village, and pro- 
ceeded to his head-quarters at Bouquet with his 
booty and his trophies. 

Another encounter shortly followed at the Bridge 
of Salindres, about midway between Auduze and 
St. Jean du Gard, in which Eoland inflicted an 
equally decisive defeat on a force commanded by 
Brigadier Lalande. Informed of the approach of 
the Loyalists, Roland posted his little army in the 
narrow, precipitous, and rocky valley, along the 
bottom of which runs the river Garden. Dividing 
his men into three bodies, he posted one on the 
bridge, another in ambuscade at the entrance to the 
defile, and a third on the summit of the precipice 
overhanging the road. 

The Eoyalists had scarcely advanced to the attack of 
the bridge, when the concealed Camisards rushed out 
and assailed their rear, while those stationed above 
hurled down rocks and stones, which threw them into 
complete disorder. They at once broke and fled, rush- 
ing down to the river, into which they threw them- 
selves ; and but for Roland's neglect in guarding the 



EXPLOITS OF CAVALIER. 165 



steep footpath leading to the ford at the mill, the whole 
body would have been destroyed. As it was, they 
suffered heavy loss, the general himself escaping with 
difficulty, leaving his white-plumed hat behind him in 
the hands of the Camisards. 



CHAPTER Yin. 



EXD OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 

HPHE insurrection in the Cevennes had continued for 
more than two years, when at length it began to 
excite serious uneasiness at Yersailles. It was felt to 
be a source of weakness as well as danger to France, 
then at war with Portugal, England, and Savoy. What 
increased the alarm of the French Government was the 
fact that the insurgents were anxiously looking abroad 
for help, and endeavouring to excite the Protestant 
governments of the Njrth to strike a blow in their 
behalf. 

England and Holland had been especially appealed 
to. Large numbers of Huguenot soldiers were then 
serving in the English army ; and it was suggested 
that if they could effect a landing on the coast of 
Languedoc, and co-operate with the Camisards, it 
would at the same time help the cause of religious 
liberty, and operate as a powerful diversion in favour 
of the confederate armies, then engaged with the armies 
of France in the Low Countries and on the Rhine. 

' In order to ascertain the feasibility of the proposed 
landing, and the condition of the Camisard insurgents, 
the ministry of Queen Anne sent the Marquis de Mire- 
mont, a Huguenot refugee in England, on a mission to 



END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 167 



the Cevennes ; and he succeeded in reaching the insur- 
gent camp at St. Felix, where he met Roland and the 
other leaders, and arranged with them for the descent 
of a body of Huguenot soldiers on the coast. 

In the month of September, 1703, the English fleet 
was descried in the Gulf of Lyons, off Aiguesmortes, 
making signals, which, however, were not answered. 
Marshal Montrevel had been warned of the intended 
invasion ; and, summoning troops from all quarters, he 
so effectually guarded the coast, that a landing was 
found impracticable. Though Cavalier was near at 
hand, he was unable at any point to communicate with 
the English ships ; and after lying off for a few days, 
they spread their sails, and the disheartened Camisards 
saw their intended liberators disappear in the distance. 

The ministers of Louis XIV. were greatly alarmed 
by this event. The invasion had been frustrated for 
the time, but the English fleet might return, and even- 
tually succeed in effecting a landing. The danger, 
therefore, had to be provided against, and at once. It 
became clear, even to Louis XIY. himself, that the 
system of terror and coercion which had heretofore 
been exclusively employed against the insurgents, had 
proved a total failure. It was accordingly determined 
to employ some other means, if possible, of bringing 
this dangerous insurrection to an end. In pursuance 
of this object, Montrevel, to his intense mortification, 
was recalled, and the celebrated Marshal Yillars, the 
victor of Hochstadt and Friedlingen, was appointed in 
his stead, with full powers to undertake and carry out 
the pacification of Languedoc. 

Yillars reached Msmes towards the end of August, 
1704 ; but before his arrival, Montrevel at last suc- 
ceeded in settling accounts with Cavalier, and wiped 



i68 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



out many old scores by inflicting upon him the severest 
defeat the Camisard arms had yet received. It was his 
first victory over Cavalier, and his last. 

Cavalier's recent successes had made him careless. 
Having so often overcome the royal troops against 
great odds, he began to think himself invincible, and 
to despise his enemy. His success at Martinargues had 
the effect of greatly increasing his troops ; and he 
made a descent upon the low country in the spring of 
1704, at the head of about a thousand foot and two 
hundred horse. 

Appearing before Bouciran, which he entered without 
resistance, he demolished the fortifications, and pro- 
ceeded southwards to St. Genies, which he attacked 
and took, carrying away horses, mides, and arms. 
Next day he marched still southward to Caveirac, only 
about three miles east of Nismes. 

Montrevel designedly published his intention of 
taking leave of his government on a certain day, and 
proceeding to Montpellier with only a very slender 
force — pretending to send the remainder to Beaucaire, 
in the opposite direction, for the purpose of escorting 
Tillars, his successor, into the city. His object in 
doing this was to deceive the Camisard leader, and to 
draw him into a trap. 

The intelligence became known to Cavalier, who now 
watched the Montpellier road, for the purpose of inflict- 
ing a parting blow upon his often-baffled enemy. In- 
stead, however, of Montrevel setting out for Monpellier 
with a small force, he mustered almost the entire troops 
belonging to the garrison of Nisnies — over six thousand 
horse and foot — and determined to overwhelm Cavalier, 
who lay in his way. Montrevel divided his force into 
several bodies, and so disposed them as completely to 



END OF THE CAM I SARD INSURRECTION. 169 



surround the comparatively small Camisard force, near 
Langlade. The first encounter was with the royalist 
regiment of Firmarcon, which Cavalier completely 
routed; but while pursuing them too keenly, the 
Camisards were assailed in flank by a strong body of 
foot posted in vineyards along the road, and driven 
back upon the main body. The Camisards now dis- 
covered that a still stronger battalion was stationed in 
their rear ; and, indeed, wherever they turned, they saw 
the Royalists posted in force. There was no alternative 
but cutting their way through the enemy ; and Cava- 
lier, putting himself at the head of his men, led the 
way, sword in hand. 

A terrible struggle ensued, and the Camisards at last 
reached the bridge at Rosni; but there, too, the 
Royalists were found blocking the road, and crowding 
the heights on either side. Cavalier, to avoid recogni- 
tion, threw off his uniform, and assumed the guise of 
a simple Camisard. Again he sought to force his way 
through the masses of the enemy. His advance was a 
series of hand-to-hand fights, extending over some six 
miles, and the struggle lasted for nearly the entire day. 
More than a thousand dead strewed the roads, of whom 
one half were Camisards. The Royalists took five 
drums, sixty-two horses, and four mules laden with 
provisions, but not one prisoner. 

When Yillars reached Msmes and heard of this 
battle, he went to see the field, and expressed his 
admiration at the skill and valour of the Camisard 
chief. " Here is a man," said he, " of no education, 
without any experience in the art of war, who has con- 
ducted himself under the most difficult and delicate 
circumstances as if he had been a great general. Truly, 
to fight such a battle were worthy of Caesar ! " 



i7o 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Indeed, the conduct of Cavalier in this struggle so 
impressed Marshal Yillars, that he determined, if pos- 
sible, to gain him over, together with his brave fol- 
lowers, to the ranks of the royal army. Villars was 
no bigot, but a humane and honourable man, and a 
thorough soldier. He deplored the continuance of this 
atrocious war, and proceeded to take immediate steps 
to bring it, if possible, to a satisfactory conclusion. 

In the meantime, however, the defeat of the Cami- 
sards had been followed by other reverses. During 
the absence of Cavalier in the South, the royalist 
general Lalande, at the head of five thousand troops, 
fell upon the joint forces of Roland and Joany at 
Brenoux, and completely defeated them. The same 
general lay in wait for the return of Cavalier with his 
broken forces, to his retreat near Euzet ; and on his 
coming up, the Eoyalists, in overpowering numbers, 
fell upon the dispirited Camisards, and inflicted upon 
them another heavy loss. 

But a greater calamity, if possible, was the discovery 
and capture of Cavalier's magazines in the caverns near 
Euzet. The royalist soldiers, having observed an old 
woman frequently leaving the village for the adjoining 
wood with a full basket and returning with an empty 
one, suspected her of succouring the rebels, arrested 
her, and took her before the general. TThen questioned 
at first she would confess nothing ; on which she was 
ordered forthwith to be hanged. TThen taken to the 
gibbet in the market-place, however, the old woman's 
resolution gave way, and she entreated to be taken back 
to the general, when she 'would confess everything. 
She then acknowledged that she had the care of an 
hospital in the adjoining wood, and that her daily 
errands had been thither. She was promised pardon if 



END OF THE C AMIS ARE) INSURRECTION. 171 



she led the soldiers at once to the place ; and she did 
so, a battalion following at her heels. 

Advancing into the wood, the old woman led the 
soldiers to the mouth of a cavern, into which she 
pointed, and the men entered. The first sight that 
met their eyes was a number of sick and wounded 
Camisards lying upon couches along ledges cut in the 
rock. They were immediately put to death. Entering 
further into the cavern, the soldiers were surprised to find 
in an inner vault an immense magazine of grain, flour, 
chestnuts, beans, barrels of wine and brandy ; farther 
in, stores of drugs, ointment, dressings, and hospital 
furnishings ; and finally, an arsenal containing a large 
store of sabres, muskets, pistols, and gunpowder, together 
with the materials for making it ; all of which the 
Boyalists seized and carried off. 

Lalande, before leaving Euzet, inflicted upon it a 
terrible punishment. He gave it up to pillage, then 
burnt it to the ground, and put the inhabitants to the 
sword — all but the old woman, who was left alone 
amidst the corpses and ashes of the ruined village. 
Lalande returned in triumph to Alais, some of his 
soldiers displaying on the points of their bayonets the 
ears of the slain Camisards. 

Other reverses followed in quick succession. Salomon 
was attacked near Pont-de-Montvert, the birthplace of 
the insurrection, and lost some eight hundred of his 
men. His magazines at Magistavols were also dis- 
covered and ransacked, containing, amongst other 
stores, twenty oxen and a hundred sheep. 

Thus, in four combats, the Camisards lost nearly half 
their forces, together with a large part of their arms, 
ammunition, and provisions. The country occupied by 
them had been ravaged and reduced to a state of desert, 



172 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



and there seemed but little prospect of their again being 
able to make head against their enemies. 

The loss of life during the last year of the insurrec- 
tion had been frighful. Some twenty thousand men 
had perished — eight thousand soldiers, four thousand 
of the Roman Catholic population, and from seven to 
eight thousand Protestants. 

Yillars had no sooner entered upon the functions of 
his office than he set himself to remedy this dreadful 
state of things. He was encouraged in his wise inten- 
tions by the Baron d'Aigalliers, a Protestant nobleman 
of high standing and great influence, who had emigrated 
into England at the Revocation, but had since returned. 
This nobleman entertained the ardent desire of recon- 
ciling the King with his Protestant subjects ; and he 
was encouraged by the French Court to endeavour to 
bring the rebels of the Cevennes to terms. 

One of the first things Yillars did, was to proceed on 
a journey through the devastated districts; and he 
could not fail to be horrified at the sight of the villages 
in ruins, the wasted vineyards, the untilled fields, and 
the deserted homesteads which met his eyes on every 
side. Wherever he went, he gave it out that he was 
ready to pardon all persons — rebels as well as their 
chiefs — who should lay down their arms. and oiibmit to 
the royal clemency ; but that, if they continued 
obstinate and refused to submit, he would proceed 
against them to the last extremity. He even offered 
to put arms in the hands of such of the Protestant 
population as would co-operate with him in suppressing 
the insurrection. 

In the meantime, the defeated Camisards under 
Poland were reorganizing their forces, and preparing 
again to take the field. They were unwilling to submit 



END OF THE C AMI SARD INSURRECTION. 173 



themselves to the professed clemency of Yillars, without 
some sufficient guarantee that their religious rights — 
in defence of which they had taken up arms — would 
be respected. Roland was already establishing new 
magazines in place of those which had been destroyed ; 
he was again recruiting his brigades from the Protest- 
ant communes, and many of those who had recovered 
from their wounds again rallied under his standard. 

At this juncture, D'Aigalliers suggested to Yillars 
that a negotiation should be opened directly with the 
Camisard chiefs to induce them to lay down their arms. 
Roland refused to listen to any overtures ; but Cavalier 
was more accessible, and expressed himself willing to 
negotiate for peace provided his religion was respected 
and recognised. 

And Cavalier was right. He saw clearly that longer 
resistance was futile, that it could only end in increased 
devastation and destruction ; and he was wise in 
endeavouring to secure the best possible terms under 
the circumstances for his suffering co-religionists. 
Roland, who refused all such overtures, was the more 
uncompromising and tenacious of purpose ; but Cavalier, 
notwithstanding his extreme youth, was by far the more 
practical and politic of the two. 

There is no doubt also that Cavalier had begun to 
weary of the struggle. He became depressed and sad, 
and even after a victory he would kneel down amidst 
the dead and wounded, and pray to Grod that He would 
turn the heart of the King to mercy, and help to re- 
establish the ancient temples throughout the land. 

An interview with Cavalier was eventually arranged 
by Lalande. The brigadier invited him to a conference, 
guaranteeing him safe conduct, and intimating that if 
he refused the meeting, he would be regarded as the 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



enemy of peace, and held responsible before God and 
man for all future bloodshed. Cavalier replied to 
Lalande's invitation, accepting the interview, indicating 
the place and the time of meeting. 

Catinat, the Camisard general of horse, was the 
bearer of Cavalier's letter, and he rode on to Alais to 
deliver it, arrayed in magnificent costume. Lalande was 
at table when Catinat was shown in to him. Observing 
the strange uniform and fierce look of the intruder, the 
brigadier asked who he was. " Catinat!" was the 
reply. "What," cried Lalande, " are you the Catinat 
who killed so many people in Beaucaire ? " " Yes, it 
is I," said Catinat, "and I only endeavoured to 
do my duty." " You are hardy, indeed, to dare to 
show yourself before me." "I have come," said the 
Camisard, "in good faith, persuaded that you are an 
honest man, and on the assurance of my brother 
Cavalier that you would do me no harm. I come to 
deliver you his letter." And so saying, he handed it 
to the brigadier. Hastily perusing the letter, Lalande 
said, " Gro back to Cavalier, and tell him that in two 
hours I shall be at the Bridge of Avene with only ten 
officers and thirty dragoons." 

The interview took place at the time appointed, on 
the bridge over the Avene, a few miles south of Alais. 
Cavalier arrived, attended by three hundred foot and 
sixty Camisard dragoons. When the two chiefs 
recognised each other, they halted their escorts, dis- 
mounted, and, followed by some ofiicers, proceeded on 
foot to meet each other. 

Lalande had brought with him Cavalier's younger 
brother, who had been for some time a prisoner, and 
presented him, saying, " The King gives him to you in 
token of his merciful intentions." The brothers, who 



END OF THE C AMI SARD INSURRECTION. 175 



had not met since their mother's death, embraced and 
wept. Cavalier thanked the general ; and then, leaving 
their officers, the two went on one side, and conferred 
together alone. 

" The King," said Lalande, " wishes, in the exercise 
of his clemency, to terminate this war amongst his sub- 
j ects ; what are your terms and your demands ? " " They 
consist of three things/' replied Cavalier : "liberty of 
worship ; the deliverance of our brethren who are in 
prison and at the galleys ; and, if the first condition 
be refused, then free permission to leave France." 
" How many persons would wish to leave the kingdom ? " 
asked Lalande. " Ten thousand of various ages and 
both sexes." " Ten thousand ! It is impossible ! 
Leave might possibly be granted for two, but certainly 
not for ten." "Then," said Cavalier, "if the King 
will not allow us to leave the kingdom, he will at least 
re-establish our ancient edicts and privileges ?" 

Lalande promised to report the result of the confer- 
ence to the marshal, though he expressed a doubt 
whether he could agree to the terms proposed. The 
brigadier took leave of Cavalier by expressing the 
desire to be of service to him at any time ; but he made 
a gross and indelicate mistake in offering his purse to 
the Camisard chief. "No, no!" said Cavalier, reject- 
ing it with a look of contempt, " I wish for none of 
your gold, but only for religious liberty, or, if that be 
refused, for a safe conduct out of the kingdom." 

Lalande then asked to be taken up to the Camisard 
troop, who had been watching the proceedings of their 
leader with great interest. Coming up to them in the 
ranks, he said, "Here is a purse of a hundred louis 
with which to drink the King's health." Their reply 
was like their leader's, " We want no money, but 



176 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



liberty of conscience." "It is not in my power to 
grant you that/' said the general, " but you will do 
well to submit to the King's will." " We are ready," 
said they, " to obey his orders, provided he grants our 
just demands ; but if not, we are prepared to die 
arms in hand." And thus ended this memorable 
interview, which lasted for about two hours ; Lalande 
and his followers returning to Alais, while Cavalier 
went with his troop in the direction of Yezenobres. 

Cavalier's enemies say that in the course of his inter- 
view with Lalande he was offered honours, rewards, 
and promotion, if he would enter the King's service ; 
and it is added that Cavalier was tempted by these 
offers, and thereby proved false to his cause and fol- 
lowers. But it is more probable that Cavalier was 
sincere in his desire to come to fair terms with the 
King, observing the impossibility, under the circum- 
stances, of prolonging the struggle against the royal 
armies with any reasonable prospect of success. If 
Cavalier were really bribed by any such promises of 
promotion, at all events such promises were never 
fulfilled; nor did the French monarch reward him 
in any way for his endeavours to bring the Camisard 
insurrection to an end. 

It was characteristic of Roland to hold aloof from 
these negotiations, and refuse to come to any terms 
whatever with "Baal." As if to separate himself 
entirely from Cavalier, he withdrew into the Upper 
Cevennes to resume the war. At the very time that 
Cavalier was holding the conference with the royalist 
general at the Bridge of the Avene, Eoland and Joany, 
with a body of horse and foot, waylaid the Count de 
Tournou at the plateau of Font-morte — the place 
where Seguier, the first Camisard leader, had been 



END OF THE C AMI SARD INSURRECTION. 177 



defeated and captured — and suddenly fell upon the 
Royalists, putting them to flight. 

A rich booty fell into the hands of the Camisards, 
part of which consisted of the quarter's rental of the 
confiscated estate of Saigas, in the possession of the 
King's collector, Yiala, whom the royalist troops were 
escorting to St. Jean de Grard. The collector, who had 
made himself notorious for his cruelty, was put to 
death after frightful torment, and his son and nephew 
were also shot. So far, therefore, as Roland and his 
associates were concerned, there appeared to be no 
intention of surrender or compromise ; and Villars was 
under the necessity of prosecuting the war against them 
to the last extremity. 

In the meantime, Cavalier was hailed throughout 
the low country as the pacificator of Languedoc. The 
people on both sides had become heartily sick of the 
war, and were glad to be rid of it on any terms that 
promised peace and security for the future. At the 
invitation of Marshal Villars, Cavalier proceeded 
towards Nismes, and his march from town to town was 
one continuous ovation. He was eagerly welcomed by 
the population ; and his men were hospitably enter- 
tained by the garrisons of the places through which 
they passed. Every liberty was allowed him ; and not 
a day passed without a religious meeting being held, 
accompanied with public preaching, praying, and psalm- 
singing. At length Cavalier and his little army ap- 
proached the neighbourhood of Nismes, where his 
arrival was anticipated with extraordinary interest. 

The beautiful old city had witnessed many strange 
sights ; but probably the entry of the young Camisard 
chief was one of the most remarkable of all. This 
herd-boy and baker's apprentice of the Cevennes, after 

N 



i 7 8 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



holding at bay the armies of France for nearly three 
years, had come to negotiate a treaty of peace with its 
most famous general. Leaving the greater part of his 
cavalry and the whole of his infantry at St. Cesaire, a 
few miles from Msmes, Cavalier rode towards the town 
attended by eighteen horsemen commanded by Catinat. 
On approaching the southern gate, he found an immense 
multitude waiting his arrival. "He could not have 
been more royally welcomed," said the priest of St. 
Germain, " had he been a king." 

Cavalier rode at the head of his troop gaily attired ; 
for fine dress was one of the weaknesses of the Camisard 
chiefs. He wore a tight-fitting doeskin coat ornamented 
with gold lace, scarlet breeches, a muslin cravat, and a 
large beaver with a white plume ; his long fair hair 
hanging over his shoulders. Catinat rode by his side 
on a high-mettled charger, attracting all eyes by his 
fine figure, his martial air, and his magnificent costume. 
Cavalier's faithful friend, Daniel Billard, rode on his 
left ; and behind followed his little brother in military 
uniform, between the Baron d'Aigalliers and Lacombe, 
the agents for peace. 

The cavalcade advanced through the dense crowd, 
which could with difficulty be kept back, past the 
Roman Amphitheatre, and along the Rue St. Antoine, 
to the Garden of the Recollets, a Franciscan convent, 
nearly opposite the elegant Roman temple known as 
the Maison Caree.* Alighting from his horse at the 
gate, and stationing his guard there under the charge 
of Catinat, Cavalier entered the garden, and was con- 
ducted to Marshal Villars, with whom was Baville, in- 
tendant of the province ; Baron Sandricourt, governor 

* The Nismes Theatre now occupies part of the Jaidin des 
Re collets. 



END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 179 



of Nisnies ; General Lalande, and other dignitaries. 
Cavalier looked such, a mere boy, that Yillars at first 
could scarcely believe that it was the celebrated 
Camisard chief who stood before him. The marshal, 
however, advanced several steps, and addressed some 
complimentary words to Cavalier, to which he respect- 
fully replied. 

The conference then began and proceeded, though 
not without frequent interruptions from Baville, who 
had so long regarded Cavalier as a despicable rebel, 
that he could scarcely brook the idea of the King's 
marshal treating with him on anything like equal 
terms. But the marshal checked the intendant by 
reminding him that he had no authority to interfere in 
a matter which the King had solely entrusted to him- 
self. Then turning to Cavalier, he asked him to state 
his conditions for a treaty of peace. 

Cavalier has set forth in his memoirs the details of 
the conditions proposed by him, and which he alleges 
were afterwards duly agreed to and signed by Yillars 
and Baville, on the 17th of May, 1704, on the part of 
the King. The first condition was liberty of conscience, 
with the privilege of holding religious assemblies in 
country places. This was agreed to, subject to the 
Protestant temples not being rebuilt. The second — ■ 
that all Protestants in prison or at the galleys should be 
set at liberty within six weeks from the date of the 
treaty — was also agreed to. The third — that all who 
had left the kingdom on account of their religion 
should have liberty to return, and be restored to their 
estates and privileges — was agreed to, subject to their 
taking the oath of allegiance. The fourth — as to the 
re-establishment of the parliament of Languedoc on its 
ancient footing — was promised consideration. The 



i8o 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



fifth and sixth — that the province should be free from 
capitation tax for ten yeto, and that the Protestants 
should hold Montpellier, Cette, Perpignan, and Aigue- 
mortes, as cautionary towns — were refused. The 
seventh — that those inhabitants of the Cevennes whose 
houses had been burnt during the civil war should pay 
no imposts for seven years — was granted. And the 
eighth — that Cavalier should raise a regiment of 
dragoons to serve the King in Portugal — was also 
granted. 

These conditions are said to have been agreed to on 
the distinct understanding that the insurrection should 
forthwith cease, and that all persons in arms against 
the King should lay them down and submit themselves 
to his majesty's clemency. 

The terms having been generally agreed to, Cavalier 
respectfully took his leave of the marshal, and returned 
to his comrades at the gate. But Catinat and the 
Camisard guard had disappeared. The conference had 
lasted two hours, during which Cavalier's general of 
horse had become tired of waiting, and gone with his 
companions to refresh himself at the sign of the Grolden 
Cup. On his way thither, he witched the world of 
Nismes with his noble horsemanship, making his 
charger bound and prance and curvet, greatly to the 
delight of the immense crowd that followed him. 

On the return of the Camisard guard to the Recollets, 
Cavalier mounted his horse, and, escorted by them, 
proceeded to the Hotel de la Poste, where he rested. 
In the evening, he came out on the Esplanade, and 
walked freely amidst the crowd, amongst whom were 
many ladies, eager to see the Camisard hero, and happy 
if they could but hear him speak, or touch his dress. 
He then went to visit the mother of Daniel, his 



END OF THE C AMIS ARE INSURRECTION. 181 



favourite prophet, a native of Nismes, whose father 
and brother were both prisoners because of their 
religion. Returning to the hotel, Cavalier mustered 
his guard, and set out for Calvisson, followed by- 
hundreds of people, singing together as they passed 
through the town gate the 133rd Psalm — " Behold, 
how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell 
together in unity ! " 

Cavalier remained with his companions at Calvisson 
for eight days, during which he enjoyed the most 
perfect freedom of action. He held public religious 
services daily, at first amidst the ruins of the demolished 
Protestant temple, and afterwards, when the space was 
insufficient, in the open plain outside the town walls. 
People came from all quarters to attend them — from 
the Vaunage, from Sommieres, from Lunel, from 
Msmes, and even from Montpellier. As many as forty 
thousand persons are said to have resorted to the services 
during Cavalier's sojourn at Calvisson. The plains re- 
sounded with preaching and psalmody from morning 
until evening, sometimes until late at night, by torch- 
light. 

These meetings were a great cause of offence to the 
more bigoted of the Roman Catholics, who saw in 
them the triumph of their enemies. They muttered 
audibly against the policy of Villars, who was tolerating 
if not encouraging heretics — worthy, in their estimation, 
only of perdition. Flechier, Bishop of Nismes, was 
full of lamentations on the subject, and did not scruple 
to proclaim that war, with all its horrors, was even 
more tolerable than such a peace as this. 

Unhappily, the peace proved only of short duration, 
and Cavalier's anticipations of unity and brotherly love 
were not destined to be fulfilled. Whether Roland 



] 82 



THE HUGUEXOTS. 



was jealous of the popularity achieved by Cavalier, or 
suspected treachery ou the part of the Royalists, or 
whether he still believed in the ability of his followers 
to conquer religious liberty and compel the re-establish- 
ment of the ancient edicts by the sword, does not 
clearly appear. At all events, he refused to be com- 
mitted in any way by what Cavalier had done ; and 
when the treaty entered into with Yillars was submitted 
to Eoland for approval, he refused to sign it. A 
quarrel had almost occurred between the chiefs, and 
hot words passed between them. But Cavalier con- 
trolled himself, and still hoped to persuade Eoland to 
adopt a practicable course, and bring the unhappy war 
to a conclusion. 

It was at length agreed between them that a further 
effort should be made to induce Yillars to grant more 
liberal terms, particularly with respect to the rebuild- 
ing of the Protestant temples ; and Cavalier consented 
that Salomon should accompany him to an interview 
with the marshal, and endeavour to obtain such a 
modification of the treaty as should meet Eoland's 
views. Accordingly, another meeting shortly after 
took place in the Garden of the Eecollets at 5sism.es, 
Cavalier leaving it to Salomon to be the spokesman on 
the occasion. 

But Salomon proved as uncompromising as his chief. 
He stated his ultimatum bluntly and firmly — re- 
establishment of the Edict of Xantes, and complete 
liberty of conscience. On no other terms, he said, 
would the Camisards lay clown their arms. Yillars was 
courtly and polite as usual, but he was as firm as 
Salomon. He would adhere to the terms that had been 
agreed to, but could not comply with the conditions 
proposed. The discussion lasted for two hours, and at 



END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 183 



length became stormy and threatening on the part of 
Salomon, on which the marshal turned on his heel and 
left the apartment. 

Cavalier's followers had not yet been informed of the 
conditions of the treaty into which he had entered with 
Villars, but they had been led to believe that the Edict 
was to be re-established and liberty of worship restored. 
Their suspicions had already been roused by the hints 
thrown out by Eavanel, who was as obdurate as Roland 
in his refusal to lay down his arms until the Edict had 
been re-established. 

While Cavalier was still at Msmes, on his second 
mission to Yillars, accompanied by Salomon, Eavanel, 
who had been left in charge of the troop at Calvisson, 
assembled the men, and told them he feared they were 
being betrayed — that they were to be refused the free 
exercise of their religion in temples of their own, but 
were to be required to embark as King's soldiers on 
shipboard, perhaps to perish at sea. " Brethren," said 
he, " let us cling by our own native land, and live and 
die for the Eternal." The men enthusiastically ap- 
plauded the stern resolve of Eavanel, and awaited with 
increasing impatience the return of the negotiating chief. 

On Cavalier's return to his men, he found, to his 
dismay, that instead of being welcomed back with the 
usual cordiality, they were drawn up in arms under 
Eavanel, and received him in silence, with angry and 
scowling looks. He upbraided Eavanel for such a 
reception, on which the storm immediately burst. 
" What is the treaty, then," cried Eavanel, " that thou 
hast made with this marshal ? " 

Cavalier, embarrassed, evaded the inquiry ; but 
Eavanel, encouraged by his men, proceeded to press for 
the information. " Well," said Cavalier, " it is arranged 



8 4 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



that we shall go to serve in Portugal." There was 
at once a violent outburst from the ranks. " Traitor ! 
coward ! then thou hast sold us ! But we shall have 
no peace — no peace without our temples." 

At sound of the loud commotion and shouting, 
Yincel, the King's commissioner, who remained at 
Calvisson pending the negotiations, came running up, 
and the men in their rage would have torn him to 
pieces, but Cavalier threw himself in their way, 
exclaiming, " Back, men ! Do him no harm, kill me 
instead." His voice, his gesture, arrested the Camisards, 
and Yincel turned and fled for his life. 

Ravanel then ordered the generate to be beaten, 
The men drew up in their ranks, and putting himself 
at their head, Ravanel marched them out of Calvisson 
by the northern gate. Cavalier, humiliated and down- 
cast, followed the troop — their leader no more. He 
could not part with them thus — the men he had so 
often led to victory, and who had followed him so 
devotedly — but hung upon their rear, hoping they 
would yet relent and return to him as their chief. 

Catinat, his general of horse, observing Cavalier 
following the men, turned upon him. " Whither 
wouldst thou go, traitor?" cried Catinat. What! 
Catinat, of all others, to prove unfaithful ? Yet it was 
so ! Catinat even presented his pistol at his former 
chief, but he did not fire. 

Cavalier would not yet turn back. He hung upon 
the skirts of the column, entreating, supplicating, 
adjuring the men, by all their former love for him, to 
turn and follow him. But they sternly marched on, 
scarcely even deigning to answer him. Ravanel en- 
deavoured to drive him back by reproaches, which at 
length so irritated Cavalier, that he drew his sword, 



END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 185 



and they were about to rush at each other, when one 
of the prophets ran between them and prevented blood- 
shed. 

Cavalier did not desist from following them for 
several miles, until at length, on reaching St. Esteve, 
the men were appealed to as to whom they would 
follow, and they declared themselves for Eavanel. 
Cavalier made a last appeal to their allegiance, and 
called out, "Let those who love me, follow me!" 
About forty of his old adherents detatched themselves 
from the ranks, and followed Cavalier in the direction 
of JNismes. But the principal body remained with 
Ravanel, who, waving his sabre in the air, and 
shouting, " Vive 1'Epee de TEternel ! " turned his 
men's faces northward and marched on to rejoin 
Roland in the Upper Cevennes. 

Cavalier was completely prostrated by the desertion 
of his followers. He did not know where next to turn. 
He could not rejoin the Camisard camp nor enter the 
villages of the Cevennes, and he was ashamed to 
approach Villars, lest he should be charged with de- 
ceiving him. But he sent a letter to the marshal, 
informing him of the failure of his negotiations, the 
continued revolt of the Cami sards, and their rejection 
of him as their chief. Villars, however, was gentle 
and generous ; he was persuaded that Cavalier had 
acted loyally and in good faith throughout, and he 
sent a message by the Baron d'Aigalliers, urgently 
inviting him to return to Msmes and arrange as to the 
future. Cavalier accordingly set out forthwith, accom- 
panied by his brother and the prophet Daniel, and 
escorted by the ten horsemen and thirty foot who still 
remained faithful to his person. 

Ifc is not necessary further to pursue the history of 



i86 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Cavalier. Suffice it to say that, at the request of 
Marshal Villars, he proceeded to Paris, where he had 
an unsatisfactory interview with Louis XIV. ; that 
fearing an intention on the part of the Roman Catholic 
party to make him a prisoner, he fled across the 
frontier into Switzerland ; that he eventually reached 
England, and entered the English army, with the 
rank of Colonel ; that he raised a regiment of refugee 
Frenchmen, consisting principally of his Camisard fol- 
lowers, at the head of whom he fought most valiantly 
at the battle of Almanza ; that he was afterwards 
appointed governor of Jersey, and died a major-general 
in the British service in the year 1740, greatly res- 
pected by all who knew him. 

Although Cavalier failed in carrying the treaty into 
effect, so far as he was concerned, his secession at this 
juncture proved a deathblow to the insurrection. The 
remaining Camisard leaders endeavoured in vain to 
incite that enthusiasm amongst their followers which 
had so often before led them to victory. The men felt 
that they were fighting without hope, and as it were 
with halters round their necks. Many of them began 
to think that Cavalier had been justified in seeking to 
secure the best terms practicable ; and they dropped 
off', by tens and fifties, to join their former leader, 
whose head-quarters for some time continued to be at 
Yallabergue, an island in the Rhone a little above 
Beaucaire. 

The insurgents were also in a great measure dis- 
armed by Marshal Villars, who continued to pursue a 
policy of clemency, and at the same time of severity. 
He offered a free pardon to all who surrendered them- 
selves, but threatened death to all who continued to resist 



END OF THE C AMIS ARB INSURRECTION. 187 



the royal troops. In sign of his clemency, he ordered 
the gibbets which had for some years stood en per- 
manence in all the villages of the Cevennes, to be 
removed ; and he went from town to town, urging all 
well-disposed people, of both religions, to co-operate 
with him in putting an end to the dreadful civil war 
that had so long desolated the province. 

Moved by the marshal's eloquent appeals, the 
principal towns along the Gar don and the Yidourle 
appointed deputies to proceed in a body to the camp of 
Roland, and induce him if possible to accept the prof- 
ferred amnesty. They waited upon him accordingly 
at his camp of St. Felix and told him their errand. 
But his answer was to order them at once to leave the 
place on pain of death. 

Yillars himself sent messengers to Roland — amongst 
others the Baron d'Aigalliers — offering to guarantee 
that no one should be molested on account of his 
religion, provided he and his men would lay down 
their arms ; but Roland remained inflexible — nothing 
short of complete religious liberty would induce him 
to surrender. 

Roland and Joany were still at the head of about a 
thousand men in the Upper Cevennes. Pont-de-Mont- 
vert was at the time occupied by a body of Miguelets, 
whom they determined if possible to destroy. Divid- 
ing their army into three bodies, they proceeded to 
assail simultaneously the three quarters of which the 
village is composed. But the commander of the 
Miguelets, informed of Roland's intention, was prepared 
to receive him. One of the Camisard wings was at- 
tacked at the same time in front and rear, thrown into 
confusion and defeated ; and the other wings were 
driven back with heavy loss. 



1 88 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



This was Roland's last battle. About a month 
later — in August, 1704 — while a body of Camisards 
occupied the Chateau of Castelnau, not far from Ners, 
the place was suddenly surounded at night by a body of 
royalist dragoons. The alarm was raised, and Eoland, 
half-dressed, threw himself on horseback and fled. He 
was pursued, overtaken, and brought to a stand in a 
wood, where, setting his back to a tree he defended 
himself bravely for a time against overpowering 
numbers, but was at last shot through the heart by a 
dragoon, and the Camisard chief lay dead upon the 
ground. 

The insurrection did not long survive the death of 
Roland. The other chiefs wandered about from place 
to place with their followers, but they had lost heart 
and hope, and avoided further encounters with the 
royal forces. One after another of them surrendered. 
Castanet and Catinat both laid down their arms, and 
were allowed to leave France for Switzerland, accom- 
panied by twenty-two of their men. Joany also 
surrendered with forty-six of his followers. 

One by one the other chiefs laid down their arms — 
all excepting Abraham and Havanel, who preferred 
liberty and misery at home to peace and exile abroad. 
They continued for some time to wander about in the 
Upper Cevennes, hiding in the woods by day and sleep- 
ing in caves by night — hunted, deserted, and miserable. 
And thus at last was Languedoc pacified ; and at the 
beginning of January, 1705, Marshal Yillars returned 
to Versailles to receive the congratulations and honours 
of the King. 

Several futile attempts were afterwards made by the 
banished leaders to rekindle the insurrection from its 
embers. Catinat and Castanet, wearied of their inaction 



END OF THE CAMISARD INSURRECTION. 189 



at Greneva, stole back across the frontiner and rejoined 
Ravanel in the Cevennes ; but their rashness cost them 
their lives. They were all captured and condemned to 
death. Castanet and Salomon were broken alive on 
the wheel on the Peyrou at Montpellier, and Catinat, 
Ravanel, with several others, were burnt alive on the 
Place de la Beaucaire at Msmes. 

The last to perish were Abraham and Joany. The 
one was shot while holding the royal troops at bay, 
firing upon them from the roof of a cottage at Mas- 
de-Couteau ; the other was captured in the moun- 
tains near the source of the Tarn. He was on his 
way to prison, tied behind a trooper, like Pob Poy 
in Scott's novel, when, suddenly freeing himself from 
his bonds while crossing the bridge of Pont-de-Montvert, 
he slid from the horse, and leapt over the parapet into 
the Tarn. The soldiers at once opened fire upon the 
fugitive, and he fell, pierced with many balls, and 
was carried away in the torrent. And thus Pont-de- 
Montvert, which had seen the beginning, also saw the 
end of the insurrection. 



CHAPTER IX. 



GALLEY-SLAYES FOR THE FAITH. 

AFTER the death of the last of the Camisard leaders, 
there was no further effort at revolt. The Hugue- 
nots seemed to be entirely put down, and Protestantism 
completely destroyed. There was no longer any resist- 
ance nor protest. If there were any Huguenots who 
had not become Catholics, they remained mute. Force 
had at last succeeded in stifling them. 

A profound quiet reigned for a time throughout 
France. The country had become a circle, closely 
watched by armed men — by dragoons, infantry, 
archers, and coastguards — beyond which the Hugue- 
nots could not escape without running the risk of the 
prison, the galley, or the gibbet. 

The intendants throughout the kingdom flattered 
Louis XI Y., and Louis XI Y. flattered himself, that 
the Huguenots had either been converted, extirpated, 
or expelled the kingdom. The King had medals 
struck, announcing the " extinction of heresy." A pro- 
clamation to this effect was also published by the King, 
dated the 8th of March, 1715, declaring the entire con- 
version of the French Huguenots, and sentencing those 
who, after that date, relapsed from Catholicsm to 
Protestantism, to all the penalties of heresy. 



GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FALTH. 191 



What, then, had become of the Huguenots ? They 
were for the moment prostrate, but their life had not 
gone out of them. Many were no doubt " converted.' ' 
They had not strength to resist the pains and penalties 
threatened by the State if they refused. They accord- 
ingly attended Mass, and assisted in ceremonies which 
at heart they detested. Though they blushed at their 
apostasy, they were too much broken down and weary 
of oppression and suffering to attempt to be free. 

But though many Huguenots pretended to be 
"converted," the greater number silently refrained. 
They held their peace and bided their time. Mean- 
while, however, they were subject to all the annoyances 
of persecution. Persecution had seized them from the 
day of their birth, and never relaxed its hold until the 
day of their death. Every new-born child must be taken 
to the priest to be baptized. When the children had 
grown into boys and girls, they must go to school and 
be educated, also by the priest. If their parents re- 
fused to send them, the children were forcibly seized, 
taken away, and brought up in the J esuit schools and 
nunneries. And lastly, when grown up into young 
men and women, they must be married by the priest, 
or their offspring be declared illegitimate. 

The Huguenots refused to conform to all this. 
Nevertheless, it was by no means easy to continue to 
refuse obeying the priest. The priest was well served 
with spies, though the principal spy in every parish was 
himself. There were also numerous other professional 
spies — besides idlers, mischief-makers, and " good- 
natured friends. " In time of peace, also, soldiers were 
usually employed in performing the disgraceful duty of 
acting as spies upon the Huguenots. 

The Huguenot was ordered to attend Mass under the 



19.2 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



penalty of fine and imprisonment. Supposing lie 
refused, because he did not believe that the priest had 
the miraculous power of converting bread and wine 
into something the very opposite. The priest insisted 
that he did possess this power, and that he was sup- 
ported by the State in demanding that the Huguenot 
must come and worship his transubstantiation of bread 
into flesh and wine into blood." " I do not believe 
it," said the Huguenot. "But I order you to come, 
for Louis XIY. has proclaimed you to be a converted 
Catholic, and if you refuse you will be at once subject 
to all the penalties of heresy." It was certainly very 
difficult to argue with a priest who had the hangman 
at his back, or with the King who had his hundred 
thousand dragoons. And so, perhaps, the threatened 
Huguenot went to Mass, and pretended to believe all 
that the priest had said about his miraculous powers. 

But many resolutely continued to refuse, willing to 
incur the last and heaviest penalties. Then it came 
to be seen that Protestantism, although declared 
defunct by the King's edict, had not in fact expired, 
but was merely reposing for a time in order to make 
a fresh start forward. The Huguenots who still re- 
mained in France, whether as " new converts " or as 
"obstinate heretics," at length began to emerge from 
their obscurity. They met together in caves and 
solitary places — in deep and rocky gorges — in valleys 
among the mountains — where they prayed together, 
sang together their songs of David, and took counsel 
one with another. 

At length, from private meetings for prayer, re- 
ligious assemblies began to be held in the Desert, and 
preachers made their appearance. The spies spread 
about the country informed the intendants. The 



GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 193 



meetings were often surprised by the military. Some- 
times the soldiers would come upon them suddenly, and 
fire into the crowd of men, women, and children. On 
some occasions a hundred persons or more would be 
killed upon the spot. Of those taken prisoners, the 
preachers were hanged or broken on the wheel, the 
women were sent to prison, and the children to 
nunneries, while the men were sent to be galley-slaves 
for life.* 

The persecutions to which Huguenot women and 
children were exposed caused a sudden enlargement 
of all the prisons and nunneries in France. Many of 
the old castles were fitted up as gaols, and even their 
dungeons were used for the incorrigible heretics. 
One of the worst of these was the Tour de Constance 
in the town of Aigueniortes, which is to this day re- 
membered with horror as the principal dungeon of 
the Huguenot women. 

The town of Aiguemortes is situated in the depart- 
ment of Grard, close to the Mediterranean, whose waters 
wash into the salt marshes and lagunes by which it is 
surrounded. It was erected in the thirteenth century 
for Philip the Bold, and is still interesting as an 
example of the ancient feudal fortress. The fosse has 
since been filled up, on account of the malaria pro- 
duced by the stagnant water which it contained. 

* In the Viverais and elsewhere they sang the song of the per- 
secuted Church : — 

" Nos filles dans les monasteres, 
Nos prisonniers dans les cachots, 
Nos martyrs dont le sang se repand a grands flots, 
Nos confesseurs sur les galeres, 
Nos malades persecutes, 
Nos mourants exposes a. plus d'une furie, 
Nos morts traines a, la voierie, 
Te disent (6 Dieu !) nos calamiles." 

O 



i 9 4 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



The place is approached hy a long causeway raised 
above the marsh, and the entrance to the tower is 
spanned by an ancient gatehouse. In advance of the 
tower, to the north, in an angle of the wall, is a single, 
large round tower, which served as a citadel. It is 
sixty-six feet in diameter and ninety feet high, sur- 
mounted by a lighthouse turret of thirty-four feet. It 
consists of two large vaulted apartments, the staircase 
from the one to the other being built within the wall 
itself, which is about eighteen feet thick. The upper- 
chamber is dimly lighted by narrow chinks through the 
walls. The lowest of the apartments is the dungeon, 
which is almost without light and air. In the centre 
of the floor is a hole connected with a reservoir of water 
below. 

This Tour de Constance continued to be the principal 
prison for Huguenot women in France for a period of 
about a hundred years. It was always horribly un- 
healthy ; and to be condemned to this dungeon was 
considered almost as certain though a slower death than 
to be condemned to the gallows. Sixteen Huguenot 
women confined there in 1686 died within five 
months. Most of them were the wives of merchants of 
Nismes, or of men of property in the district. When 
the prisoners died off, the dungeon was at once filled 
up again with more victims, and it was rarely, if ever, 
empty, down to a period within only a few years before 
the outbreak of the French Revolution. 

The punishment of the men found attending re- 
ligious meetings, and taken prisoners by the soldiers, 
was to be sentenced to the galleys, mostly for life. 
They were usually collected in large numbers, and sent 
to the seaports attached together by chains. They 
were sent openly, sometimes through the entire length 



GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 195 



of tlie kingdom, by way of a show. The object was to 
teach the horrible delinquency of professing Protestant- 
ism ; for it could not be to show the greater beautiful- 
ness and mercifulness of Catholicism. 

The punishment of the Chain varied in degree. 
Sometimes it was more cruel than at other times. This 
depended upon the drivers of the prisoners. Marteilhe 
describes the punishment during his conveyance from 
Havre to Marseilles in the winter of 1712.* The 
Chain to which he belonged did not reach Marseilles 
until the 17th January, 1713. The season was bitterly 
cold ; but that made no difference in the treatment of 
Huguenot prisoners. 

The Chain consisted of a file of prisoners, chained 
one to another in various ways. On this occasion, each 
pair was fastened by the neck with a thick chain three 
feet long, in the middle of which was a round ring. 
After being thus chained, the pairs were placed in file, 
couple behind couple, when another long thick chain 
was passed through the rings, thus running along the 
centre of the gang, and the whole were thus doubly 
chained together. There were no less than four 
hundred prisoners in the chain described by Marteilhe. 
The number had, however, greatly fallen off through 
deaths by barbarous treatment before it reached 
Marseilles. 

It must, however, be added, that the whole gang did 
not consist of Huguenots, but only a part of it — the 
Huguenots being distinguished by their red jackets. 
The rest consisted of murderers, thieves, deserters, and 
criminals of various sorts. 

* "Autobiography of a French. Protestant condemned to the 
G-alleys because of his Eeligion." Rotterdam, 1757. (Since reprinted 
by the Religious Tract Society ) 



i 9 6 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



The difficulty which, the prisoners had in marching 
along the roads was very great ; the weight of chain 
which each member had to carry being no less than 
one hundred and fifty pounds. The lodging they had 
at night was of the worst description. While at Paris, 
the galley-slaves were quartered in the Chateau de la 
Tournelle, which was under the spiritual direction of 
the Jesuits. The gaol consisted of a large cellar or 
dungeon, fitted with huge beams of oak fixed close to 
the floor. Thick iron collars were attached by iron 
chains to the beams. The collar being placed round 
the prisoner's neck, it was closed and riveted upon an 
anvil with heavy blows of a hammer. 

Twenty men in pairs were thus chained to each beam. 
The dungeon was so large that five hundred men could 
thus be fastened up. They could not sleep lying at 
full length, nor could they sleep sitting or standing up 
straight ; the beam to which they were chained being 
too high in the one case and too low in the other. The 
torture which they endured, therefore, is scarcely to be 
described. The prisoners were kept there until a suffi- 
cient number could be collected to set out in a great 
chain for Marseilles. 

When they arrived at the first stage out of Paris, at 
Charenton, after a heavy day's fatigue, their lodging 
was no better than before. A stable was found in 
which they were chained up in such a way that they 
could with difficulty sit down, and then only on a dung- 
heap. After they had lain there for a few hours, the 
prisoners' chains were taken off, and they were turned 
out into the spacious courtyard of the inn, where they 
were ordered to strip off their clothes, put them down 
at their feet, and march over to the other side of the 
courtyard. 



GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 197 



The object of this proceeding was to search the 
pockets of the prisoners, examine their clothes, and find 
whether they contained any kniyes, files, or other tools 
which might be used for cutting the chains. All money 
and other valuables or necessaries that the clothes con- 
tained were at the same time taken away. 

The night was cold and frosty, with a keen north 
wind blowing ; and after the prisoners had been ex- 
posed to it for about half an hour, their bodies became 
so benumbed that they could scarcely move across the 
yard to where their clothes were lying. Next morning 
it was found that eighteen of the unfortunates were 
happily released by death. 

It is not necessary to describe the tortures endured 
by the galley-slaves to the end of their journey. One 
little circumstance may, however, be mentioned. 
While marching towards the coast, the exhausted 
Huguenots, weary and worn out by the heaviness of 
their chains, were accustomed to stretch out their 
little wooden cups for a drop of water to the inhabit- 
ants of the villages through which they passed. The 
women, whom they mostly addressed, answered their 
entreaties with the bitterest spite. "Away, away!" 
they cried, " you are going where you will have water 
enough ! " 

When the gang or chain reached the port at which 
the prisoners were to be confined, they were drafted on 
board the different galleys. These were for the most 
part stationed at Toulon, but there were also other 
galleys in which Huguenots were imprisoned — at 
Marseilles, Dunkirk, Brest, St. Malo, and Bordeaux. 
Let us briefly describe the galley of those days. 

The royal galley was about a hundred and fifty feet 
long and forty feet broad, and was capable of containing 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



about five hundred men. It had fifty benches for rowers, 
twenty-five on each side. Between these two rows of 
benches was the raised middle gallery, commonly called 
the waist of the ship, four feet high and about three or 
four feet broad. The oars were fifty feet long, of which 
thirty-seven feet were outside the ship and thirteen 
within. Six men worked at each oar, all chained to 
the same bench. They had to row in unison, otherwise 
they would be heavily struck by the return rowers both 
before and behind them. They were under the con- 
stant command of the comite or galley-slave-driver, who 
struck all about him with his long whip in urging them 
to work. To enable his strokes to tell, the men sat 
naked while they rowed.* Their dress was always 
insufficient, summer and winter — the lower part of their 
bodies being covered with a short red jacket and a sort 
of apron, for their manacles prevented them wearing 
any other dress. 

The chain which bound each rower to his bench was 
fastened to his leg, and was of such a length as to 
enable his feet to come and go whilst rowing. At 
night, the galley-slave slept where he sat — on the bench 
on which he had been rowing all day. There was no 
room for him to lie down. He never quitted his bench 
except for the hospital or the grave ; yet some of the 
Huguenot rowers contrived to live upon their benches 
for thirty or forty years ! 

During all these years they toiled in their chains in 
a hell of foul and disgusting utterance, for they were 

* Le comite ou chef de chiourme, aide de deux sous-co)nites, 
allait et venait sans cesse sur le coursier, frappant les forcats a coup 
de nerfs de boeuf, comme un cocher ees chevaux. Pour rendre les 
coups plus sensible et pour economiser les vetements, les galeriem 
etaient nits quand ils ramaient. — Atha^ase Coqtjerel pels. Le 
Formats pour la Foi, 64. 



GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FAITH. 199 



mixed up with thieves and the worst of .criminals. They 
ate the bread and drank the waters of bitterness. They 
seemed to be forsaken by the world. They had no one 
to love them, for most had left their families behind 
them at home, or perhaps in convents or prisons. They 
lived under the constant threats of their keepers, who 
lashed them to make them row harder, who lashed 
them to make them sit up, or lashed them to make them 
lie down. The Chevalier Langeron, captain of La 
Palme, of which Marteilhe was at first a rower, used 
to call the comite to him and say, "Gro and refresh 
the backs of these Huguenots with a salad of strokes 
of the whip." For the captain, it seems, " held the 
most Jesuitical sentiments/' and hated his Huguenot 
prisoners far worse than his thieves or his murderers. * 
And yet, at any moment, a word spoken would have 
made these Huguenots free. The Catholic priests 
frequently visited the galleys and entreated them to 
become converted. If " converted/' and the Huguenots 
would only declare that they believed in the miraculous 
powers of the clergy, their chains would fall away from 
their limbs at once ; and they would have been restored 
to the world, to their families, and to liberty ! And 
who would not have declared themselves " converted," 
rather than endure these horrible punishments ? Yet 
by far the greater number of the Huguenots did not. 
They could not be hypocrites. They would not lie to 
Grod. Rather than do this, they had the heroism — 
some will call it the obstinacy — to remain galley-slaves 
for life ! 

Many of the galley-slaves did not survive their torture 
long. Men of all ages and conditions, accustomed to 
indoor life, could not bear the exposure to the sun, 
* "The Autobiography of a French Protestant, "68. 



200 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



rain, and snow, which the punishment of the galley- 
slave involved. The old men and the young soon 
succumbed and died. Middle-aged men survived the 
longest. But there was always a change going on. 
When the numbers of a galley became thinned by 
death, there were other Huguenots ready to be sent on 
board — perhaps waiting in some inland prison until 
another " Great Chain " could be made up for the sea- 
ports, to go on board the galley-ships, to be manacled, 
tortured, and killed off as before. 

Such was the treatment of the galley- slaves in time 
of peace. But the galleys were also war-ships. They 
carried large numbers of armed men on board. Some- 
times they scoured the Mediterranean, and protected 
French merchant-ships against the Sallee rovers. At 
other times they were engaged in the English channel, 
attacking Dutch and English ships, sometimes picking 
up a prize, at other times in actual sea-fight. 

When the service required, they were compelled to 
row incessantly night and day, without rest, save in the 
last extremity ; and they were treated as if, on the first 
opportunity, in sight of the enemy, they would revolt 
and betray the ship ; hence they were constantly 
watched by the soldiers on board, and if any commotion 
appeared amongst them, they were shot down without 
ceremony, and their bodies thrown into the sea. Loaded 
cannons were also placed at the end of the benches of 
rowers, so as to shoot them down in case of necessity. 

Whenever an enemy's ship came up, the galley-slaves 
were covered over with a linen screen, so as to prevent 
them giving signals to the enemy. When an action 
occurred, they were particularly exposed to danger, for 
the rowers and their oars were the first to be shot at- — 
just as the boiler or screw of a war-steamer would be 



GALLEY-SLAVES FOR THE FALTH. 201 



shot at now — in order to disable the ship. The galley- 
slaves thus suffered much more from the enemy's shot 
than the other armed men of the ship. The rowers' 
benches were often filled with dead, before the soldiers 
and mariners on board had been touched. 

Marteilhe, while a galley-slave on board La Palme, 
was engaged in an adventure which had nearly cost 
him his life. Four French galleys, after cruising along 
the English coast from Dover to the Downs, got sight 
of a fleet of thirty-five merchant vessels on their way 
from the Texel to the Thames, under the protection of 
one small English frigate. The commanders of the 
galleys, taking counsel together, determined to attack 
the frigate (which they thought themselves easily able 
to master), and so capture the entire English fleet. 

The captain of the frigate, when he saw the galleys 
approach him, ordered the merchantmen to crowd sail 
and make for the Thames, the mouth of which they had 
nearly reached. He then sailed down upon the galleys, 
determined to sacrifice his ship if necessary for the 
safety of his charge. The galleys fired into him, 
but he returned never a shot. The captain of the galley 
in which Marteilhe was, said, " Oh, he is coming to 
surrender ! " The frigate was so near that the French 
musqueteers were already firing full upon her. All of 
a sudden the frigate tacked and veered round as if 
about to fly from the galleys. The Frenchmen called 
out that the English were cowards in thus trying 
to avoid the battle. If they did not surrender at once, 
they would sink the frigate ! 

The English captain took no notice. The frigate 
then turned her stern towards the galley, as if to give 
the Frenchmen an opportunity of boarding her. The 
French commander ordered the galley at once to run at 



202 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



the enemy's stem, and the crew to board the frigate. 
The rush was made ; the galley-slaves, urged by 
blows of the whip, rowing with great force. The 
galley was suddenly nearing the stern of the frigate, 
when by a clever stroke of the helm the ship moved to 
one side, and the galley, missing it, rushed past. All 
the oars on that side were suddenly broken off, and the 
galley was placed immediately under the broadside of 
the enemy. 

Then began the English part of the game. The 
French galley was seized with grappling irons and 
hooked on to the English broadside. The men on 
board the galley were as exposed as if they had been 
upon a raft or a bridge. The frigate's guns, which 
were charged with grapeshot, were discharged full upon 
them, and a frightful carnage ensued. The English 
also threw hand grenades, which went down amongst 
the rowers and killed many. They next boarded the 
galley, and cut to pieces all the armed men they could 
lay hold of, only sparing the convicts, who could make 
no attempt at defence. 

The English captain then threw off the galley, which 
he had broadsided and disarmed, in order to look after 
the merchantmen, which some of the other galleys 
had gone to intercept on their way to the mouth of the 
Thames. Some of the ships had already been cap- 
tured; but the commanders of the galleys, seeing their 
fellow-commodores flying signals of distress, let go their 
prey, and concentrated their attack upon the frigate. 
This they surrounded, and after a very hard struggle 
the frigate was captured, but not until the English 
captain had ascertained that all the fleet of which 
he had been in charge had entered the Thames and 
were safe. 



GALLEF-SLA VES FOR THE FAITH. 203 



In the above encounter with the English frigate 
Marteilhe had nearly lost his life. The bench on which 
he was seated, with five other slaves, was opposite one 
of the loaded guns of the frigate. He saw that it must 
be discharged directly upon them. His fellows tried 
to lie down flat, while Marteilhe himself stood up. He 
saw the gunner with his lighted match approach the 
touchhole ; then he lifted up his heart to God ; the 
next moment he was lying stunned and prostrate in 
the centre of the galley, as far as the chain would allow 
him to reach. He was lying across the body of the lieu- 
tenant, who was killed. A long time passed, during 
which the fight was still going on, and then Marteilhe 
came to himself, towards dark. Most of his fellow- 
slaves were killed. He himself was bleeding from a 
large open wound on his shoulder, another on his knee, 
and a third in his stomach. Of the eighteen men 
around him he was the only one that escaped, with his 
three wounds. 

The dead were all thrown into the sea. The men 
were about to throw Marteilhe after them, but while 
attempting to release him from his chain, they touched 
the wound upon his knee, and he groaned heavily. 
They let him remain where he lay. Shortly after, 
he was taken down to the bottom of the hold with 
the other men, where he long lay amongst the wounded 
and dying. At length he recovered from his wounds, 
and was again returned to his bench, to re-enter the 
horrible life of a galley-slave. 

There was another mean and unmanly cruelty, con- 
nected with this galley-slave service, which was prac- 
tised only upon the Huguenots. If an assassin or 
other criminal received a wound in the service of the 
state while engaged in battle, he was at once restored 



204- 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



to his liberty ; but if a Huguenot was wounded, he was 
never released. He was returned to his bench and 
chained as before ; the wounds he had received being 
only so many additional tortures to be borne by him 
in the course of his punishment. 

Marteilhe, as we have already stated, was disembarked 
when he had sufficiently recovered, and marched 
through the entire length of France, enchained with 
other malefactors. On his arrival at Marseilles, he was 
placed on board the galley Grand Reale, where he 
remained until peace was declared between England 
and France by the Treaty of Utrecht.* 

Queen Anne of England, at the instigation of the 
Marquis de Rochegade, then made an effort to obtain 
the liberation of Protestants serving at the galleys ; 
and at length, out of seven hundred and forty-two 
Huguenots who were then enslaved, a hundred and 
thirty- six were liberated, of whom Marteilhe was one. 
He was thus enabled to get rid of his inhuman country- 
men, and to spend the remainder of his life in Holland 
and England, where Protestants were free. 

* i( Autobiography of a French Protestant," 112 — 21. 



CHAPTER X. 



ANTOINE COURT 

A LMOST at the very time that Louis XIY. was 
lying on his death-bed at Versailles, a young 
man conceived the idea of re-establishing Protest- 
antism in France ! Louis XIY. had tried to enter 
heaven by superstition and cruelty. On his death-bed 
he began to doubt whether he "had not carried his 
authority too far."* But the Jesuits tried to make 
death easy for him, covering his body with relics of 
the true cross. 

Very different was the position of the young man 
who tried to undo all that Louis XIY., under the influ- 
ence of his mistress De Maintenon, and his Jesuit con- 
fessor, Pere la Chase, f had been trying all his life to 
accomplish. He was an intelligent youth, the son of 

* Saint-Simon and Dangeau. 

f Amongst the many satires and epigrams with which Louis XIV. 
was pursued to the grave, the following epitaph may be given : — 

" Ci gist le mari de Therese 
De la Montespan le Mignon, 
L'esclave de la Maintenon, 
Le valet du pere La Chaise." 

At the death of Louis XIY., Voltaire, an Sieve of the Jesuits, was 
appropriately coming into notice. At the age of about twenty he 
was thrown into the Bastille for having written a satire on Louis 
XTV., of which the following is an extract : — 



206 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Huguenot parents in Viverais, of comparatively poor 
and humble condition. He was, however, full of 
energy, activity, and a zealous disposition for work. 
Observing the tendency which Protestantism had, 
while bereft of its pastors, to run into gloomy forms 
of fanaticism, Antoine Court conceived the idea of re- 
viving the pastorate, and restoring the proscribed 
Protestant Church of France. It was a bold idea, 
but the result proved that Antoine Court was justified 
in entertaining it. 

Louis XIV. died in August, 1715. During that very 
month, Court summoned together a small number of 
Huguenots to consider his suggestions. The meeting 
was held at daybreak, in an empty quarry near Msmes, 
which has already been mentioned in the course of this 
history. But it may here be necessary to inform the 
reader of the early life of this enthusiastic young man. 

Antoine Court was born at Yilleneuve de Berg, in 
Viverais, in the year 1696. Religious persecution was 
then at its height; assemblies were vigorously put 
down ; and all pastors taken prisoners were hanged on 
the Peyrou at Hontpellier. Court was only four years 
old when his father died, and his mother resolved, if 
the boy lived, to train him up so that he might conse- 
crate himself to the service of Gfod. He was still very 

" J'ai vu sous 1' habit d'une femme 

Un demon nous donner la loi ; 
Elle sacrifia son Dieu, sa foi, son ame, 
Pour seduire 1' esprit d'un trop credule roi. 
****** 

J'ai vu l'hypocrite honore : 
J'ai vu, c'est dire tout, le jesuite adore : 

J'ai vu ces maux sous le regne funeste 
D'un prince que jadis la colere celeste 
Accorda, par vengeance, a nos desirs ardens : 

J'ai vu ces maux, et je n'ai pas vingt ans." 

Voltaire denied having written this satire. 



ANTOINE COURT. 



207 



young while the Camisard war was in progress, but he 
heard a great deal about it, and vividly remembered 
all that he heard. 

Antoine Court, like many Protestant children, was 
compelled to attend a Jesuit school in his neighbour- 
hood. Though but a boy he abhorred the Mass. With 
Protestants the Mass was then the symbol of persecu- 
tion ; it was identified with the Revocation of the Edict 
— the dragonnades, the galleys, the prisons, the nun- 
neries, the monkeries, and the Jesuits. The Mass was 
not a matter of knowledge, but of fear, of terror, and 
of hereditary hatred. 

At school, the other boys were most bitter against 
Court, because he was the son of a Huguenot. Every 
sort of mischief was practised upon him, for little boys 
are generally among the greatest of persecutors. 
Court was stoned, worried, railed at, laughed at, spit 
at. When leaving school, the boys called after him 
" He, he ! the eldest son of Calvin ! " They sometimes 
pursued him with clamour and volleys of stones to the 
door of his house, collecting in their riotous procession 
all the other Catholic boys of the place. Sometimes 
they forced him into church whilst the Mass was being 
celebrated. In fact, the boy's hatred of the Mass and 
of Catholicism grew daily more and more vehement. 

All these persecutions, together with reading some of 
the books which came under his notice at home, con- 
firmed his aversion to the Jesuitical school to which he 
had been sent. At the same time he became desirous 
of attending the secret assemblies, which he knew 
were being held in the neighbourhood. One day, 
when his mother set out to attend one of them, the 
boy set out to follow her. She discovered him, and 
demanded whither he was going. "I follow you, 



208 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



mother," said he, " and I wish you to permit me to 
go where you go. I know that you go to pray to 
God, and will you refuse me the favour of going to 
do so with you ? " 

She shed tears at his words, told him of the danger 
of attending the assembly, and strongly exhorted him 
to secrecy ; but she allowed him to accompany her. 
He was at that time too little and weak to walk the 
whole way to the meeting ; but other worshippers com- 
ing up, they took the boy on their shoulders and carried 
him along with them. 

At the age of seventeen, Court began to read the 
Bible at the assemblies. One day, in a moment of 
sudden excitement, common enough at secret meetings, 
he undertook to address the assembly. "What he said was 
received with much approval, and he was encouraged 
to go on preaching. He soon became famous among 
the mountaineers, and was regarded as a young man 
capable of accomplishing great things. 

As he grew older, he at length determined to devote 
his life to preaching and ministering to the forsaken 
and afflicted Protestants. It was a noble, self-denying 
work, the only earthly reward for which was labour, 
difficulty, and danger. His mother was in great trouble, 
for Antoine was her only remaining son. She did not, 
however, press him to change his resolution. Court 
quoted to her the text, "Whoever loves father and 
mother more than me, is not worthy of me." After 
this, she only saw in her son a victim consecrated, like 
another Abraham, to the Divine service. 

After arriving at his decision, Court proceeded to 
visit the Huguenots in Low Languedoc, passing by 
TTzes to Msmes, and preaching wherever he could 
draw assemblies of the people together. His success 



ANTOINE COURT. 



209 



during this rapid excursion induced him to visit Dau- 
phiny. There he met Brunei, another preacher, with 
knapsack on his back, running from place to place 
in order to avoid spies, priests, and soldiers. The two 
were equally full of ardour, and they went together 
preaching in many places, and duly encouraging each 
other. 

From Dauphiny, Court directed his steps to Marseilles, 
where the royal galleys stationed there contained about 
three hundred Huguenot galley-slaves. He penetrated 
these horrible floating prisons, without being detected, 
and even contrived to organize amongst them a regular 
system of secret worship. Then he returned to Msmes, 
and from thence went through the Cevennes and the 
Viverais, preaching to people who had never met for 
Protestant worship since the termination of the wars of 
the Camisards. To elude the spies, who began to make 
hot search for him, because of the enthusiasm which 
he excited, Court contrived to be always on the move, 
and to appear daily in some fresh locality. 

The constant fatigue which he underwent under- 
mined his health, and he was compelled to remain for 
a time inactive at the mineral waters of Euzet. This re- 
tirement proved useful. He began to think over what 
might be done to revivify the Protestant religion in 
France. Remember that he was at that time only 
nineteen years of age ! It might be thought pre- 
sumptuous in a youth, comparatively uninstructed, even 
to dream of such a subject. The instruments of earthly 
power — King, Pope, bishops, priests, soldiers, and spies 
— were all arrayed against him. He had nothing to 
oppose to them but truth, uprightness, conscience, and 
indefatigable zeal for labour. 

When Court had last met the few Protestant preachers 
p 



210 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



who survived in Languedoc, they were very undecided 
about taking up his scheme. They had met at Msmes 
to take the sacrament in the house of a friend. There 
were Bombonnoux (an old Canrisard), Orotte, Corteiz, 
Brunei, and Court. Without coming to any decision, 
they separated, some going to Switzerland, and others 
to the South and West of France. It now rested with 
Court, during his sickness, to study and endeavour to 
arrange the method of reorganization of the Church. 

■ The Huguenots who remained in France were then 
divided into three classes — the "new converts," who 
professed Catholicism while hating it ; the lovers of 
the ancient Protestant faith, who still clung to it ; and, 
lastly, the more ignorant, who still clung to prophesying 
and inspiration. These last had done the Protestant 
Church much injury, for the intelligent classes generally 
regarded them as but mere fanatics. 

Court found it would be requisite to keep the latter 
within the leading-strings of spiritual instruction, and 
to encourage the " new converts " to return to the 
church of their fathers by the re-establishment of some 
efficient pastoral service. He therefore urged that 
religious assemblies must be continued, and that discip- 
line must be established by the appointment of elders, 
presbyteries, and synods, and also by the training up 
of a body of young pastors to preach amongst the people, 
and discipline them according to the rules of the 
Protestant Church. Nearly thirty years had passed 
since it had been disorganized by the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, so that synods, presbyteries, and the 
training of preachers had become almost forgotten. 

The first synod was convened by Court, and held in 
the abandoned quarry near JSTismes, above referred to, 
in the very same month in which Louis XIY. breathed 



ANTOINE COURT, 



211 



his last. It was a very small beginning. Two or 
three laymen and a few preachers * were present, the 
whole meeting numbering only nine persons. The place 
in which the meeting was held had often before been 
used as a secret place of worship by the Huguenots. 
Religious meetings held there had often been dispersed 
by the dragoons, and there was scarcely a stone in it 
that had not been splashed by Huguenot blood, And 
now, after Protestantism had been " finally suppressed," 
Antoine Court assembled his first synod to re-establish 
the proscribed religion ! 

The first meeting took place on the 21st of August, 
1715, at daybreak. After prayer, Court, as moderator, 
explained his method of reorganization, which was 
approved. The first elders were appointed from amongst 
those present. A series of rules and regulations was 
resolved upon and ordered to be spread over the entire 
province. The preachers were then charged to go 
forth, to stir up the people and endeavour to bring back 
the "new converts." 

They lost no time in carrying out their mission. 
The first districts in which they were appointed to work 
were those of Mende, Alais, Viviers, TJzes, Msmes, 
and Montpellier, in Languedoc — districts which, fifteen 
years before, had been the scenes of the Camisard war. 
There, in unknown valleys, on hillsides, on the moun- 
tains, in the midst of hostile towns and villages, the 
missionaries sought out the huts, the farms, and the 
dwellings of the scattered, concealed, and half- frightened 
Huguenots. Amidst the open threats of the magistrates 
and others in office, and the fear of the still more hateful 
priests and spies, they went from house to house, and 

* Edmund Hughes says the preachers were probahly Rouviere (or 
Crotte), Jean Hue, Jean Vesson, Etienne Arnaud, and Durand. 



2 I 2 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



prayed, preached, advised, and endeavoured to awaken 
the zeal of their old allies of the " Religion." 

The preachers were for the most part poor, and some 
of them were labouring men. They were mostly natives 
of Languedoc. J ean Yesson, a cooper by trade, had in 
his youth been " inspired," and prophesied in his 
ecstasy. Mazelet, now an elderly man, had formerly 
been celebrated among the Camisards, and preached 
with great success before the soldiers of Roland. At 
forty he was not able to read or write ; but having been 
forced to fly into Switzerland, he picked up some edu- 
cation at Geneva, and had studied divinity under a 
fellow-exile. 

Bonibonnoux had been a brigadier in the troop of 
Cavalier. After his chiefs defection he resolved to 
continue the war to the end, by preaching, if not by 
fighting. He had been taken prisoner and imprisoned 
at Montpellier, in 1705. Two of his Camisard friends 
were first put upon the rack, and then, while still 
living, thrown upon a pile and burnt to death before 
his eyes. But the horrible character of the punish- 
ment did not terrify him. He contrived to escape 
from prison at Montpellier, and then went about con- 
voking assemblies and preaching to the people as 
before. 

Besides these, there were Hue, Corteiz, Durand, 
Arnaud, Brunei, and Rouviere or Crotte, who all went 
about from place to place, convoking assemblies and 
preaching. There were also some local preachers, as 
they might be called — old men who could not move 
far from home — who worked at their looms or trades, 
sometimes tilling the ground by day, and preaching 
at night. Amongst these were Monteil, Guillot, and 
Bonnard, all more than sixty years of age. 



ANTOINE COURT. 



213 



Court, because of his youth and energy, seems to have 
been among the most active of the preachers. One day, 
near St. Hypolite, a chief centre of the Huguenot 
population, he convoked an assembly on a mountain 
side, the largest that had taken place for many 
years. The priests of the parish gave information to 
the authorities ; and the governor of Alais offered a re- 
ward of fifty pistoles to anyone who would apprehend 
and deliver up to him the young preacher. Troops 
were sent into the district ; upon which Court descended 
from the mountains towards the towns of Low Langue- 
doc, and shortly after he arrived at Msmes. 

At Msmes, Court first met J acques Roger, who after- 
wards proved of great assistance to him in his work. 
Roger had long been an exile in Wurtemburg. He 
was originally a native of Boissieres, in Languedoc, and 
when a young man was compelled to quit France with 
his parents, who were Huguenots. His heart, how- 
ever, continued to draw him towards his native country, 
although it had treated himself and his family so 
cruelly. 

As Roger grew older, he determined to return to 
France, with the object of helping his friends of the 
"Religion." A plan had occurred to him, like that 
which Antoine Court was now endeavouring to carry 
into effect. The joy with which Roger encountered 
Court at Msmes, and learnt his plans, may therefore be 
conceived. The result was, that Roger undertook to 
"awaken'' the Protestants of Dauphiny, and to en- 
deavour to accomplish there what Court was already 
gradually effecting in Languedoc. Roger held his first 
synod in Dauphiny in August, 1716, at which seven 
preachers and several elders or anciens assisted. 

In the meantime Antoine Court again set out to visit 



214 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



the clmrckes which, had been reconstructed along: 
the banks of the Gardon. He had been suffering: 
from intermittent fever, and started on his journey 
before he was sufficiently recovered. Having no horse, 
he walked on foot, mostly by night, along the least 
known by-paths, stopping here and there upon his 
way. At length he became so enfeebled and ill as 
to be unable to walk further. He then induced two 
men to carry him. By crossing their hands over each 
other, they took him up between them, and carried him 
along on this improvised chair. 

Court found a temporary lodging with a friend. But 
no sooner had he laid himself down to sleep, than the 
alarm was raised that he must get up and fly. A 
spy had been observed watching the house. Court 
rose, put on his clothes, and though suffering great 
pain, started afresh. The night was dark and rainy. By 
turns shivering with cold and in an access of fever, he 
wandered alone for hours across the country, towards the 
house of another friend, where he at last found shelter. 
Such were the common experiences of these wandering, 
devoted, proscribed, and heroic ministers of the Gospel. 

Their -labours were not carried on without encoun- 
tering other and greater dangers. Now that the 
Protestants were becoming organized, it was not so 
necessary to incite them to public worship. They even 
required to be restrained, so that they might not too 
suddenly awaken the suspicion or excite the opposition 
of the authorities. Thus, at the beginning of 1717, the 
preacher Yesson held an open assembly near Anduze. 
It was surprised by the troops ; and seventy-two 
persons made prisoners, of whom the men were sent to 
the galleys for life, and the women imprisoned in the 
Tour de Constance. Yesson was on this occasion re- 



AN TO IN E COURT. 



215 



primanded by the synod, for haying exposed his 
brethren to unnecessary danger. 

While there was the danger of loss of liberty to the 
people, there was the danger of loss of life to the 
pastors who were bold enough to minister to their re- 
ligious necessities. Etienne Arnaud having preached 
to an assembly near Alais, was taken prisoner by the 
soldiers. They took him to ^lontpellier, where he was 
judged, condemned, and sent back to Alais to be 
hanged. This brave young man gave up his life with 
great courage and resignation. His death caused much 
sorrow amongst the Protestants, but it had no effect in 
dissuading the preachers and pastors from the work 
they had taken in hand. There were many to take 
the place of Arnaud. Young Betrine offered himself to 
the synod, and was accepted. 

Scripture readers were also appointed, to read the 
Bible at meetings which preachers were not able to 
attend. There was, however, a great want of Bibles 
amongst the Protestants. One of the first things done 
by the young King Louis XY. — the "Well-beloved" 
of the Jesuits — on his ascending the throne, was to 
issue a proclamation ordering the seizure of Bibles, 
Testaments, Psalm-books, and other religious works 
used by the Protestants. And though so many books 
had already been seized and burnt in the reign of 
Louis XIY., immense piles were again collected and 
given to the flames by the executioners. 

" Our need of books is very great," wrote Court to a 
friend abroad ; and the same statement was repeated in 
many of his letters. His principal need was of Bibles 
and Testaments ; for every Huguenot knew the greater 
part of the Psalms by heart. When a Testament 
was obtained, it was lent about, and for the most 



216 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



part learnt off. The labour was divided in this 
way. One person, sometimes a boy or girl, of good 
memory, would undertake to learn one or more chap- 
ters in the Gospels, another a certain number in 
the Epistles, until at last a large portion of the book 
was committed to memory, and could be recited at 
the meetings of the assemblies. And thus also it 
happened, that the conversation of the people, as 
well as the sermons of their preachers, gradually 
assumed a strongly biblical form. 

Strong appeals were made to foreign Protestants to 
supply the people with books. The refugees who had 
settled in Switzerland, Holland, and England sent the 
Huguenots remaining in France considerable help in 
this way. They sent many Testaments and Psalm-books, 
together with catechisms for the young, and many de- 
votional works written by French divines residing in 
Holland and England — by Drelincourt, Saurin, Claude 
and others. These were sent safely across the frontier 
in bales, put into the hands of colporteurs, and circu- 
lated amongst the Protestants all over the South of 
France. The printing press of Geneva was also put 
in requisition ; and Court had many of his sermons 
printed there and distributed amongst the people. 

Until this time, Court had merely acted as a 
preacher ; and it was now determined to ordain and 
consecrate him as a pastor. The ceremony, though 
comparatively unceremonious, was very touching. A 
large number of Protestants in the Yaunage assembled 
on the night of the 21st November, 1718, and, after 
prayer, Court rose and spoke for some time of the 
responsible duties of the ministry, and of the necessity 
and advantages of preaching. He thanked God for 
having raised up ministers to serve the Church when 



ANTOINE COURT. 



217 



so many of her enemies were seeking for her ruin. 
He finally asked the whole assembly to pray for grace 
to enable him to fulfil with renewed zeal the duties to 
which he was about to be called, together with all the 
virtues needed for success. At these touching words 
the assembled hearers shed tears. Then Corteiz, the 
old pastor, drew near to Court, now upon his knees, 
and placing a Bible upon his head, in the name of 
Jesus Christ, and with the authority of the synod, 
gave him power to exercise all the functions of the 
ministry. Cries of joy were heard on all sides. Then, 
after further prayer, the assembly broke up in the 
darkness of the night. 

The plague which broke out in 1720 helped the 
progress of the new Church. The Protestants thought 
the plague had been sent as a punishment for their 
backsliding. Piety increased, and assemblies in the 
Desert were more largely attended than before. The 
intendants ceased to interfere with them, and the 
soldiers were kept strictly within their cantonments. 
More preachers were licensed, and more elders were 
elected. Many new churches were set up through- 
out Languedoc ; and the department of the Lozere, 
in the Cevennes, became again almost entirely Pro- 
testant. Roger and Yilleveyre were almost equally 
successful in Dauphiny ; and Saintonge, Normandy, 
and Poitou were also beginning to maintain a connec- 
tion with the Protestant churches of Languedoc. 



CHAPTER XI. 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 

^HE organization of the Church in the Desert is one 
of the most curious things in history. Secret 
meetings of the Huguenots had long been held in 
France. They were began several years before the 
Act of Revocation was proclaimed, when the dragon- 
nades were on foot, and while the Protestant temples 
were being demolished by the Government. The 
Huguenots then arranged to meet and hold their 
worship in retired places. 

As the meetings were at first held, for the most part, 
in Languedoc, and as much of that province, especially 
in the district of the Cevennes, is really waste and 
desert land, the meetings were at first called " Assem- 
blies in the Desert," and for nearly a hundred years 
they retained that name. 

When Court began to reorganize the Protestant 
Church in France, shortly after the Camisard war, 
meetings in the Desert had become almost unknown. 
There were occasional prayer-meetings, at which chapters 
of the Bible were read or recited by those who re- 
membered them, and psalms were sung ; but there were 
few or no meetings at which pastors presded. Court, 
however, resolved not only to revive the meetings of 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 219 



the dmrcli in the Desert, but to reconstitute the con- 
gregations, and restore the system of governing them 
according to the methods of the Huguenot Church. 

The first thing done in reconstituting a congrega- 
tion, was to appoint certain well-known religious men, 
as anciens or elders. These were very important 
officers. They formed the church in the first instance ; 
for where there were no elders, there was no church. 
They were members of the consistoire or presbytery. 
They looked after the flock, visited them in their 
families, made collections, named the pastors, and 
maintained peace, order, and discipline amongst the 
people. Though first nominated by the pastors, they 
were elected by the congregation ; and the reason for 
their election was their known ability, zeal, and piety. 

The elder was always present at the assemblies, 
though the minister was absent. He prevented the 
members from succumbing to temptation and falling 
away ; he censured scandal ; he kept up the flame of 
religious zeal, and encouraged the failing and helpless ; 
he distributed amongst the poorest the collections 
made and intrusted to him by the Church. 

We have said that part of the duty of the elders was 
to censure scandal amongst the members. If their 
conduct was not considered becoming the Christian life, 
they were not visited by the pastors and were not 
allowed to attend the assemblies, until they had declared 
their determination to lead a better life. What a 
punishment for infraction of discipline ! to be de- 
barred attending an assembly, for being present at 
which, the pastor, if detected, might be hanged, and the 
penitent member sent to the galleys for life !* 

The elders summoned the assemblies. They gave 

* 0. Coquerel, "Eglise du Desert," i. 105. 



220 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



the word to a few friends, and these spread the notice 
about amongst the rest. The news soon became 
known, and in the course of a day or two, the members 
of the congregation, though living perhaps in distant 
villages, would be duly informed of the time and place 
of the intended meeting. It was usually held at night, 
— in some secret place — in a cave, a hollow in the 
woods, a ravine, or an abandoned farmstead. 

Men, women, and even children were taken thither, 
after one, two, or sometimes three leagues' walking. 
The meetings were always full of danger, for spies 
were lurking about. Catholic priests were con- 
stant informers ; and soldiers were never far distant. 
But besides the difficulties of spies and soldiers, the 
meetings were often dispersed by the rain in summer, 
or by the snow in winter. 

After the Camisard war, and before the appear- 
ance of Court, these meetings rarely numbered more 
than a hundred persons. But Court and his fellow- 
pastors often held meetings at which more than two 
thousand people were present. On one occasion, not 
less than four thousand persons attended an assembly in 
Lower Languedoc. 

When the meetings were held by day, they were 
carefully guarded and watched by sentinels on the 
look-out, especially in those places near which garrisons 
were stationed. The fleetest of the young men were 
chosen for this purpose. They watched the garrison 
exits, and when the soldiers made a sortie, the sentinels 
communicated by signal from hill to hill, thus giving 
warning to the meeting to disperse. Bat the assemblies 
were mostly held at night ; and even then the sentinels 
were carefully posted about, but not at so great a 
distance. 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 221 



The chief of the whole organization was the pastor. 
First, there were the members entitled to church 
privileges ; next the anciens ; and lastly the pastors. 
As in Presbyterianism, so in Huguenot Calvinism, 
its form of government was republican. The organiza- 
tion was based upon the people who elected their 
elders ; then upon the elders who selected and recom- 
mended the pastors ; and lastly upon the whole con- 
gregation of members, elders, and pastors (represented 
in synods), who maintained the entire organization of 
the Church. 

There were three grades of service in the rank of 
pastor — first students, next preachers, and lastly 
pastors. Wonderful that there should have been 
students of a profession, to follow which was almost 
equal to a sentence of death ! But there were plenty 
of young enthusiasts ready to brave martyrdom in the 
service of the proscribed Church. Sometimes it was 
even necessary to restrain them in their applications. 

Court once wrote to Pierre Durand, at a time when 
the latter was restoring order and organization in 
Viverais : " Sound and examine well the persons offer- 
ing themselves for your approval, before permitting 
them to enter on this glorious employment. Secure 
good, virtuous men, full of zeal for the cause of truth. 
It is piety only that inspires nobility and greatness of 
soul. Piety sustains us under the most extreme 
dangers, and triumphs over the severest obstacles. 
The good conscience always marches forward with its 
head erect." 

When the character of the young applicants was 
approved, their studies then proceeded, like everything 
else connected with the proscribed religion, in secret. 
The students followed the professor and pastor in his 



222 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



wanderings over the country, passing long nights in 
marching, sometimes hiding in caves by day, or sleep- 
ing under the stars by night, passing from meeting 
to meeting, always with death looming before them. 

"I have often pitched my professor's chair," said 
Court, "in a torrent underneath a rock. The sky 
was our roof, and the leafy branches thrown out from 
the crevices in the rock overhead, were our canopy. 
There I and my students would remain for about eight- 
days ; it was our hall, our lecture-room, and our study. 
To make the most of our time, and to practise the 
students properly, I gave them a text of Scripture to 
discuss before me — say the first eleven verses of the 
fifth chapter of Luke. I would afterwards propose to 
them some point of doctrine, some passage of Scripture, 
some moral precept, or sometimes I gave them some 
difficult passages to reconcile. After the whole had 
stated their views upon the question under discussion, I 
asked the youngest if he had anything to state against 
the arguments advanced ; then the others were asked 
in turn ; and after they had finished, I stated the views 
which I considered most just and correct. "When the 
more advanced students were required to preach, they 
mounted a particular place, where a pole had been set 
across some rocks in the ravine, and which for the time 
served for a pulpit. And when they had delivered them- 
selves, the others were requested by turns to express 
themselves freely upon the subject of the sennon which 
they had heard." 

TThen the proposant or probationer was considered 
sufficiently able to preach, he was sent on a mission 
to visit the churches. Sometimes he preached the 
approved sermons of other pastors ; sometimes he 
preached his own sermons, after they had been ex- 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 223 



amined by persons appointed by the synod. After 
a time, if approved by the moderator and a committee 
of the synod, the proposant was licensed to preach. 
His work then resembled that of a pastor ; but he 
could not yet administer the sacrament. It was only 
when he had passed the synod, and been appointed by 
the laying on of hands, that he could exercise the higher 
pastoral functions. 

Then, with respect to the maintenance of the pastors 
and preachers, Court recounts, not without pride, that 
for the ten years between 1713 and 1723 (excepting 
the years which he spent at Geneva), he served the 
Huguenot churches without receiving a farthing. His 
family and friends saw to the supply of his private 
wants. With respect to the others, they were sup- 
ported by collections made at the assemblies ; and, as 
the people were nearly all poor, the amount collected 
was very small. On one occasion, three assemblies 
produced a halfpenny and six half-farthings. 

But a regular system of collecting moneys was framed 
by the synods (consisting of a meeting of pastors and 
elders), and out of the common fund so raised, emolu- 
ments were assigned, first to those preachers who were 
married, and afterwards to those who were single. In 
either case the pay was very small, scarcely sufficient 
to keep the wolf from the door. 

The students for the ministry were at first educated 
by Court and trained to preach, while he was on his 
dangerous journeys from one assembly in the Desert to 
another. Nor was the supply of preachers sufficient to 
visit the congregations already organized. Court had 
long determined, so soon as the opportunity offered, of 
starting a school for the special education of preachers 
and pastors, so that the work he was engaged in might 



224 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



be more efficiently carried on. He at first corresponded 
with influential French refugees in England ana 
Holland with reference to the subject. He wrote to 
Basnage and Saurin, but they received his propositions 
coolly. He wrote to "William Wake, then Archbishop 
of Canterbury, who promised his assistance. At last 
Court resolved to proceed into Switzerland, to stir up the 
French refugees disposed to help him in his labours. 

Arrived at Geneva, Court sought out M. Pictet, to 
whom he explained the state of affairs in France. It 
had been rumoured amongst the foreign Protestants 
that fanaticism and " inspiration " were now in the 
ascendant among the Protestants of France. Court 
showed that this was entirely a mistake, and that all 
which the proscribed Huguenots in France wanted, 
was a supply of properly educated pastors. The friends 
of true religion, and the enemies of fanaticism, ought 
therefore to come to their help and supply them with 
that of which they stood most in need. If they would 
find teachers, Court would undertake to supply them 
with congregations. And Huguenot congregations were 
rapidly increasing, not only in Languedoc and Dau- 
phiny, but in Normandy, Picardy, Poitou, Saintonge, 
Beam, and the other provinces. 

At length the subject became matured. It was not 
found desirable to establish the proposed school at 
Geneva, that city being closely watched by France, and 
frequently under the censure of its government for 
giving shelter to refugee Frenchmen. It was even- 
tually determined that the college for the education of 
preachers should begin at Lausanne. It was accordingly 
commenced in the year 1726, and established under the 
superintendence of M. Duplan. 

A co mmi ttee of refugees called the " Society of Help 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 225 



for the Afflicted Faithful," was formed at Lausanne to 
collect subscriptions for the maintenance of the preachers, 
the pastors, and the seminary. These were in the first 
place received from Huguenots settled in Switzerland, 
afterwards increased by subscriptions obtained from 
refugees settled in Holland, Germany, and England. 
The King of England subscribed five hundred guineas 
yearly. Duplan was an indefatigable agent. In 
fourteen years he collected fourteen thousand pounds. 
By these efforts the number of students was gradually 
increased. They came from all parts of France, but 
chiefly from Languedoc. Between 1726 (the year in 
which it was started) and 1753, ninety students had 
passed through the seminary. 

When the students had passed the range of study 
appointed by the professors, they returned from Swit- 
zerland to France to enter upon the work of their 
lives. They had passed the school for martj^rdom, 
and were ready to preach to the assemblies — they 
had paved their way to the scaffold ! 

The preachers always went abroad with their lives in 
their hands. They travelled mostly by night, shunning 
the open highways, and selecting abandoned routes, often 
sheep-paths across the hills, to reach the scene of 
their next meeting. The trace of their steps is still 
marked upon the soil of the Cevennes, the people of the 
country still speaking of the solitary routes taken by 
their instructors when passing from parish to parish, 
to preach to their fathers. 

They were dressed, for disguise, in various ways ; 
sometimes as peasants, as workmen, or as shepherds. 
On one occasion, Court and Duplan travelled the 
country disguised as officers ! The police heard 
of it, and ordered their immediate arrest, pointing 

Q 



226 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



out the town and the very house where they were to 
be taken. But the preachers escaped, and assumed 
a new dress. 

TYTien living near Nismes, Court was one day seated 
under a tree composing a sermon, when a party of 
soldiers, hearing that he was in the neighbourhood, 
came within sight. Court climbed up into the tree, 
where he remained concealed among the branches, and 
thus contrived to escape their search. 

On another occasion, he was staying with a Mend, 
in whose house he had slept during the previous 
night. A detachment of troops suddenly surrounded 
the house, and the officer knocked loudly at the 
door. Court made his friend go at once to bed pre- 
tending to be ill, while he himself cowered down in 
the narrow space between the bed and the wall. His 
wife slowly answered the door, which the soldiers 
were threatening to blow open. They entered, rum- 
maged the house, opened all the chests and closets, 
sounded the walls, examined the sick man's room, and 
found nothing ! 

Court hhnself, as well as the other pastors, worked 
very hard. On one occasion, Court made a round of 
visits in Lower Languedoc and in the Cevennes, at 
first alone, and afterwards accompanied by a young 
preacher. In the space of two months and a few days 
he visited thirty-one churches, holding assemblies, 
preac hin g, and ad mini stering the sacrament, during 
which he travelled over three hundred miles. The 
weather did not matter to the pastors — rain nor snow, 
wind nor storm, never hindered them. They took the 
road and braved all. Even sickness often failed to stay 
them. Sickness might weaken but did not overthrow 
them. 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 227 



The spies and police so abounded throughout the 
country, and were so active P that they knew all the 
houses in which the preachers might take refuge. A 
list of these was prepared and placed in the hands of 
the intendant of the province.* If preachers were 
found in them, both the shelterers and the sheltered 
knew what they had to expect. The whole property 
and goods of the former were confiscated and they 
were sent to the galleys for life ; and the latter were 
first tortured by the rack, and then hanged. The 
houses in which preachers were found were almost 
invariably burnt down. 

Notwithstanding the great secrecy with which the 
whole organization proceeded, preachers were fre- 
quently apprehended, assemblies were often surprised, 
and many persons were imprisoned and sent to the 
galleys for life. Each village had its chief spy — the 
priest ; and beneath the priest there were a number of 
other spies — spies for money, spies for cruelty, spies for 
revenge. 

Was an assembly of Huguenots about to be held ? 
A spy, perhaps a traitor, would make it known. The 
priest's order was sufficient for the captain of the 
nearest troop of soldiers to proceed to disperse it. They 
marched and surrounded the assembly. A sound of 
volley-firing was heard. The soldiers shot down, 
hanged, or made prisoners of the unlawful worshippers. 
Punishments were sudden, and inquiry was never made 
into them, however brutal. There was the fire for 
Bibles, Testaments, and psalm-books ; galleys for men ; 
prisons and convents for women; and gibbets for 
preachers. 

* It has since been published in the " Bulletin de la Society du 
Protestantisme Franchise." 



228 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



In 1720 a large number of prisoners were captured 
in the famous old quarry near JSusmes, long the seat of 
secret Protestant worship. But the troops surrounded 
the meeting suddenly, and the whole were taken. The 
women were sent for life to the Tour de Constance, and 
the men, chained in gangs, were sent all through France 
to La Pochelle, to be imprisoned in the galleys there. 
The ambassador of England made intercession for the 
prisoners, and their sentence was commuted into one of 
perpetual banishment from France. They were accord- 
ingly transported to J^ew Orleans on the Mississippi, 
to populate the rising French colony in that quarter of 
Korth America. 

Thus crimes abounded, and cruelty when practised 
upon Huguenots was never investigated. The seizure 
and violation of women was common. Fathers knew 
the probable consequence when their daughters were 
seized. The daughter of a Huguenot was seized at 
Fzes, in 1733, when the father immediately died of 
grief. Two sisters were seized at the same place to be 
" converted," and their immediate relations were thrown 
into gaol in the meantime. This was a common pro- 
ceeding. The Tour de Constance was always filling, 
and kept full. 

The dying were tortured. If they refused the 
viaticum they were treated as " damned persons." 
"When J ean de Molenes of Cahors died, making a pro- 
fession of Protestantism, his body was denounced as 
damned, and it was abandoned without sepulture. A 
woman who addressed some words of consolation to 
Joseph Martin when dying was condemned to pay a 
fine of six thousand livres, and be imprisoned in the 
castle of Beauregard ; and as for Martin, his memory 
was declared to be damned for ever. Many such out- 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 229 



rages to tlie living and dead were constantly occurring.* 
Gaolers were accustomed to earn money by exhibiting 
the corpses of Huguenot women at fairs, inviting those 
who paid for admission, to walk up and " see the corpse 
of a damned person." f 

Notwithstanding all these cruelties, Protestantism was 
making considerable progress, both in Languedoc and 
Dauphiny. In reorganizing the Church, the whole 
country had been divided into districts, and preachers 
and pastors endeavoured to visit the whole of their 
members with as much regularity as possible. Thus 
Languedoc was divided into seven districts, and to each 
of those a proposant or probationary preacher was ap- 
pointed. The presbyteries and synods met regularly 
and secretly in a cave, or the hollow bed of a river, or 
among the mountains. They cheered each other up, 
though their progress was usually over the bodies of 
their dead friends. 

For any pastor or preacher to be apprehended, was, 
of course, certain death. Thus, out of thirteen 
Huguenots who were found worshipping in a private 
apartment at Montpellier, in 1723, Yesson, the pastor, 
and Bonicel and Antoine Comte, his assistants, were at 
once condemned and hanged on the Peyrou, the other 
ten persons being imprisoned or sent to the galleys for 
life. 

Shortly after, Hue, the aged paster, was taken 
prisoner in the Cevennes, brought to Montpellier, and 
hanged in the same place. A reward of a thousand 
livres was offered by Bernage, the intendant, for the 
heads of the remaining preachers, the fatal list com- 

* Edmund Hughes, " Histoire de la Restauration du Protestant- 
isme en France," ii. 94. 
t Benoit, " Edit de Nantes," v. 987. 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



prising the names of Court, Cortez, Durand, Rouviere, 
Borabonnoux, and others. The names of these " others" 
were not mentioned, not being yet thought worthy of 
the gibbet. 

And yet it was at this time that the Bishop of Alais 
made an appeal to the government against the tolera- 
tion shown to the Huguenots ! In 1723, he sent a long 
memorial to Paris, alleging that Catholicism was suffer- 
ing a serious injury ; that not only had the " new con- 
verts " withdrawn themselves from the Catholic Church, 
but that the old Catholics themselves were resort- 
ing to the Huguenot assemblies ; that sometimes their 
meetings numbered from three to four thousand per- 
sons ; that their psalms were sometimes overheard in 
the surrounding villages; that the churches were 
becoming deserted, the cures in some parishes not 
being able to find a single Catholic to serve at Mass ; 
that the Protestants had ceased to send their children 
to school, and were baptized and married without the 
intervention of the Church. 

In consequence of these representations, the then 
Eegent, the Duke of Bourbon, sent down an urgent 
order to the authorities to carry out the law — to 
prevent meetings, under penalty of death to preachers, 
and imprisonment at the galleys to all who attended 
them, ordering that the people should be forced to go 
to church and the children to school, and reviving 
generally the severe laws against Protestantism issued 
by Louis XIY. The result was that many of the 
assemblies were shortly after attacked and dispersed, 
many persons were made prisoners and sent to the 
galleys, and many more preachers were apprehended, 
racked, and hanged. 

Bepeated attempts were made to apprehend Antoine 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 231 



Court, as being the soul of the renewed Protestant 
organization. A heavy reward was offered for his 
head. The spies and police hunted after him in all 
directions. Houses where he was supposed to be con- 
cealed were surrounded by soldiers at night, and every 
hole and corner in them ransacked. Three houses were 
searched in one night. Court sometimes escaped with 
great difficulty. On one occasion he remained con- 
cealed for more than twenty hours under a heap of 
manure. His friends endeavoured to persuade him to 
leave the country until the activity of the search for 
him had passed. 

Since ' the year 1722, Court had undertaken new 
responsibilities. He had become married, and was 
now the father of three children. He had married a 
young Huguenot woman of Uzes. He first met her in 
her father's house, while he was in hiding from the 
spies. While he was engaged in his pastoral work his 
wife and family continued to live at Uzes. Court was 
never seen in her company, but could only visit his 
family secretly. The woman was known to be of 
estimable character, but it gave rise to suspicions 
that she had three children without a known father. 
The spies were endeavouring to unravel the secret, 
tempted by the heavy reward offered for Court's head. 

One day the new commandant of the town, passing 
before the door of the house where Court's wife lived, 
stopped, and, pointing to the house, put some questions 
to the neighbours. Court was informed of this, and 
immediately supposed that his house had become 
known, that his wife and family had been discovered 
and would be apprehended. He at once made arrange- 
ments for having them removed to Geneva. They 
reached that city in safety, in the month of April, 1729. 



2 3 2 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Shortly after, Court,, still wandering and preaching 
about Languedoc, became seriously ill. He feared for 
his wife, he feared for his family, and conceived the 
design of ioining them in Switzerland. A few months 
later, exhausted by his labours and continued illness, 
he left Languedoc and journeyed by slow stages to 
Geneva. He was still a young man, only thirty- 
three ; but he had worked excessively hard during 
the last dozen years. Since the age of fourteen, in 
fact, he had evangelized Languedoc. 

Shortly before Court left France for Switzerland, the 
preacher, Alexandre Eoussel, was, in the year 1728, 
added to the number of martyrs. He was only twenty- 
six years of age. The occasion on which he was made 
prisoner was while attending an assembly near Yigan. 
The whole of the people had departed, and Eoussel was 
the last to leave the meeting. He was taken to Mont- 
peliier, and imprisoned in the citadel, which had before 
held so many Huguenot pastors. He was asked to 
abjure, and offered a handsome bribe if he would become 
a Catholic. He refused to deny his faith, and was 
sentenced to die. When Antoine Court went to offer 
consolation to his mother, she replied, " If my son had 
given way I should have been greatly distressed ; but 
as he died with constancy, I thank God for strengthen- 
ing him to perform this last work in his service." 

Court did not leave his brethren in France without 
the expostulations of his friends. They alleged that his 
affection for his wife and family had cooled his zeal for 
God's service. Duplan and Cortez expostulated with 
him ; and the churches of Languedoc, which he himself 
had established, called upon him to return to his duties 
amongst them. 

But Court did not attend to their request. His 



REORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH. 253 



determination was for the present unshaken. He had 
a long arrears of work to do in quiet. He had money 
to raise for the support of the suffering Church of 
France, and for the proper maintenance of the college 
for students, preachers, and pastors. He had to help 
the refugees, who still continued to leave France for 
Switzerland, and to write letters and rouse the Pro- 
testant kingdoms of the north, as Brousson had done 
before him some thirty years ago. 

The city of Berne was very generous in its treatment 
of Court and the Huguenots generally. The Bernish 
Government allotted Court a pension of five hundred 
livres a-year — for he was without the means of sup- 
porting his family — all his own and his wife's pro- 
perty having been seized and sequestrated in France. 
Court preached with great success in the principal 
towns of Switzerland, more particidarly at Berne, and 
afterwards at Lausanne, where he spent the rest of his 
days. 

Though he worked there more peacefully, he 
laboured as continuously as ever in the service of the 
Huguenot churches. He composed addresses to them ; 
he educated preachers and pastors for them ; and one of 
his principal works, while at Lausanne, was to compose 
a history of the Huguenots in France subsequent to the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 

What he had done for the reorganization of the 
Huguenot Church in France may be thus briefly stated. 
Court had begun his work in 1715, at which time there 
was no settled congregation in the South of France. 
The Huguenots were only ministered to by occasional 
wandering pastors. In 1729, the year in which Court 
finally left France, there were in Lower Languedoc 29 
organized, though secretly governed, churches ; in 



2 34 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Upper Languedoc, 11 ; in the Cevennes, 18 ; in the 
Lozere 12 ; and in Viverais, 42 churches. There were 
now over 200,000 recognised Protestants in Languedoc 
alone. The ancient discipline had been restored ; 120 
churches had been organized; a seminary for the 
education of preachers and pastors had been established ; 
and Protestantism was extending in Dauphiny, Beam, 
Saintonge,* and other quarters. 

Such were, in a great measure, the results of the 
labours of Antoine Court and his assistants during the 
previous fifteen years. 

* In 1726, a deputation from Guyenne, Poyergue, and Poitou, 
appeared before the Languedoc synod, requesting preachers and 
pastors to be sent to them. The synod agreed to send Maroger as 
preacher. Betrine (the first of the Lausanne students) and Grail 
were afterwards sent to join him. Protestantism was also re- 
awakening in Saintonge and Picardy, and pastors from Languedoc 
journeyed there to administer the sacrament. Preachers were 
afterwards sent to join them, to awaken the people, and reorganize 
the congregations. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT, 1730-62 

PAUL RABAUT. 

HpHE persecutions of the Huguenots increased at one 
time and relaxed at another. When France was at 
war, and the soldiers were fighting in Flanders or on 
the Rhine, the bishops became furious, and complained 
bitterly to the government of the toleration shown to 
the Protestants. The reason was that there were no 
regiments at liberty to pursue the Huguenots and dis- 
perse their meetings in the Desert. When the soldiers 
returned from the wars, persecution began again. 

It usually began with the seizing and burning of 
books. The book-burning days were considered amongst 
the great days of fete. 

One day in June, 1730, the Intendant of Languedoc 
visited Nismes, escorted by four battalions of troops. 
On arriving, the principal Catholics were selected, and 
placed as commissaries to watch the houses of the sus- 
pected Huguenots. At night, while the inhabitants 
slept, the troops turned out, and the commissaries 
pointed out the Huguenot houses to be searched, The 
inmates were knocked up, the soldiers entered, the 
houses were rummaged, and all the books tha,t could 
be found were taken to the Hotel de Ville. 



236 



THE HUGUENOTS, 



A few days after a great auto-da-fe was held. The 
entire Catholic population turned out. There were the 
four battalions of troops, the gendarmes, the Catholic 
priests, and the chief dignitaries ; and in their presence 
all the Huguenot books were destroyed. They were 
thrown into a pile on the usual place of execution, and 
the hangman set fire to this great mass of Bibles, 
psalm-books, catechisms, and sermons.* The officers 
laughed, the priests sneered, the multitude cheered. 
These bonfires were of frequent occurrence in all the 
towns of Languedoc. 

But if the priests hated the printed word, still more 
did they hate the spoken word. They did not like 
the Bible, but they hated the preachers. Fines, auto- 
da-fes, condemnation to the galleys, seizures of women 
and girls, and profanation of the dead, were tolerable 
punishments, but there was nothing like hanging a 
preacher. "Nothing," said Saint -Florentin to the 
commandant of La Devese, " can produce more impres- 
sion than hanging a preacher ; and it is very desirable 
that you should immediately take steps to arrest one of 
them." 

The commandant obeyed orders, and apprehended 
Pierre Durand. He was on his way to baptize the 
child of one of his congregation, who lived on a farm 
in Viverais. An apparent peasant, who seemed to be 
waiting his approach, offered to conduct him to the 
farm. Durand followed him. The peasant proved to 
be a soldier in disguise. He led Durand directly into 
the midst of his troop. There he was bound and 
carried off to Montpellier. 

Durand was executed at the old place — the Peyrou — 

* E. Hughes, " Histoire de la Restauration du Protestantisme en 
France," ii. 9 J. 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT, 



237 



the soldiers beating their drums to stifle his voice 
while he prayed. His corpse was laid beside that of 
Alexandre Roussel, under the rampart of the fortress 
of Montpellier. Durand was the last of the preachers in 
France who had attended the synod of 1715. They 
had all been executed, excepting only Antoine Court, 
who was safe in Switzerland. 

The priests were not so successful with Claris, the 
preacher, who contrived to escape their clutches. Claris 
had just reached France on his return from the semi- 
nary at Lausanne. He had taken shelter for the night 
with a Protestant friend at Foissac, near Uzes. Scarcely 
had he fallen asleep, when the soldiers, informed by 
the spies, entered his chamber, bound him, and marched 
him off on foot by night, to Alais. He was thrown 
into gaol, and was afterwards judged and condemned 
to death. His friends in Alais, however, secretly con- 
trived to get an iron chisel passed to him in prison. 
He raised the stone of a chamber which communicated 
with his dungeon, descended to the ground, and silently 
leapt the wall. He was saved. 

Pastors and preafchers continued to be tracked and 
hunted with renewed ardour in Saintonge, Poitou, 
Gascony, and Dauphiny. "The Chase," as it was 
called, was better organized than it had been for twenty 
years previously. The Catholic clergy, however, con- 
tinued to complain. The chase, they said, was not 
productive enough ! The hangings of pastors were 
too few. The curates of the Cevennes thus addressed the 
intendants : " You do not perform your duty : you 
are neither active enough nor pitiless enough ; " * and 
they requested the government to adopt more vigorous 
measures. 

* E. Hughes, ii. 99. Coquerel, «« L'Eglise dans le Desert," i. 258. 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



The intendants, who were thus accused, insisted that 
they had done their duty. They had hanged all the 
Huguenot preachers that the priests and their spies 
had discovered and brought to them. They had also 
offered increased rewards for the preachers' heads. If 
Protestantism counted so large a number of adherents, 
they were surely not to blame for that ! Had the priests 
themselves done their duty ? Thus the intendants and 
the cures reproached each other by turns. 

And yet the pastors and preachers had not been 
spared. They had been hanged without mercy. 
They knew they were in the peril of constant death. 
" I have slept fifteen days in a meadow," wrote 
Cortez, the pastor, "and I write this under a tree." 
Morel, the preacher, when attending an assembly, was 
fired at by the soldiers and died of his wounds. 
Pierre Dortial was also taken prisoner when holding 
an assembly. The host with whom he lived was con- 
demned to the galleys for life ; the arrondissement in 
which the assembly had been held was compelled to 
pay a fine of three thousand livres ; and Dortial him- 
self was sentenced to be hanged. When the aged 
preacher was informed of his sentence he exclaimed : 
" What an honour for me, oh my Grod ! to have been 
chosen from so many others to suffer death because of 
my constancy to the truth." He was executed at 
JNTismes, and died with courage. 

In 1742 France was at war, and the Huguenots en- 
joyed a certain amount of liberty. The edicts against 
them were by no means revoked ; their execution was 
merely suspended. The provinces were stripped of 
troops, and the clergy could no longer call upon them to 
scatter the meetings in the Desert. Hence the assem- 
blies increased. The people began to think that the 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 239 



commandants of the provinces had received orders to 
shut their eyes, and see nothing of the proceedings of 
the Huguenots. 

At a meeting held in a valley between Calvisson and 
Langlade, in Languedoc, no fewer than ten thousand 
persons openly met for worship. JSTo troops appeared. 
There was no alarm nor surprise. Everything passed 
in perfect quiet. In many other places, public worship 
was celebrated, the sacrament was administered, chil- 
dren were baptized, and marriages were celebrated in 
the open day. * 

The Catholics again urgently complained to the 
government of the increasing number of Huguenot 
meetings. The Bishop of Poitiers complained that in 
certain parishes of his diocese there was not now a 
single Catholic. Low Poitou contained thirty Protestant 
churches, divided into twelve arrondissements, and each 
arrondissement contained about seven thousand mem- 
bers. The Procureur-General of Normandy said, " All 
this country is full of Huguenots." But the govern- 
ment had at present no troops to spare, and the Catholic 
bishops and clergy must necessarily wait until the war 
with the English and the Austrians had come to an end. 

Antoine Court paid .a short visit to Languedoc in 
1744, to reconcile a difference which had arisen in the 
Church through the irregular conduct of Pastor Boyer. 
Court was received with great enthusiasm, and when 
Boyer was re-established in his position as pastor, after 
making his submission to the synod, a convocation of 

* Although marriages by the pastors had long been declared 
illegal, they nevertheless married and baptized in the Desert. After 
1730, the number of Protestant marriages greatly multiplied, though 
it was known that the issue of such marriages were declared by the 
laws of France to be illegal. Many of the Protestants of Dauphiny 
went across the frontier into Switzerland, principally to Geneva, and 
were £here married. 



240 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Huguenots was held near Sauzet, at which thousands 
of people were present. Court remained for about a 
month in France, preaching almost daily to immense 
audiences. At Nismes, he preached at the famous 
place for Huguenot meetings — in the old quarry, 
about three miles from the town. There were about 
twenty thousand persons present, ranged, as in an 
amphitheatre, along the sides of the quarry. It was a 
most impressive sight. Peasants and gentlemen mixed 
together. Even the " beau monde " of Nismes was 
present. Everybody thought that there was now an 
end of the persecution.* 

In the meantime the clergy continued to show signs 
of increasing irritation. They complained, denounced, 
and threatened. Various calumnies were invented 
respecting the Huguenots. The priests ofDauphiny 
gave out that Roger, the pastor, had read an edict pur- 
porting to be signed by Louis XY. granting complete 
toleration to the Huguenots ! The report was entirely 
without foundation, and Eoger indignantly denied that 
he had read any such edict. But the report reached 
the ears of the King, then before Ypres with his army ; 
on which he issued a proclamation announcing that the 
rumour publicly circulated that it was his intention to 
tolerate the Huguenots was absolutely false. 

JN"o sooner had the war terminated, and the army 
returned to France, than the persecutions recom- 
menced as hotly as ever. The citizens of Xismes, 

* Of the preachers about this time (1740-4) the best known were 
Morel, Foriel, Mauvillon, Voulaud, Corteiz, Peyrot, Eoux, Gauch, 
Coste, Dugniere, Blachon, Gabriac, Dejours, Rabaut, Gibert, Mig- 
nault Desubas, Dubesset, Pradel, Morin, Defferre, Loire, Pradon, — 
with many more. Defferre restored Protestantism in Berne. Loire 
(a native of St. Omer, and formerly a Catholic), Viala, Preneuf, and 
Prudon, were the apostles of Normandy, Rouergue, Guyenne, and 
Poitou. 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 241 



for having . recently encouraged the Huguenots and 
attended Court's great meeting, were heavily fined. All 
the existing laws for the repression and destruction 
of Protestantism were enforced. Suspected persons 
were apprehended and imprisoned without trial. A 
new "hunt" was set on foot for preachers. There 
were now plenty of soldiers at liberty to suppress the 
meetings in the Desert, and they were ordered into the 
infested quarters. In a word, persecution was let 
loose all over France. Ivor was it without the usual 
results. It was yery hot in Dauphiny. There a 
detachment of horse police, accompanied by regular 
troops and a hangman, ran through the province early 
in 1745, spreading terror everywhere. One of their 
exploits was to seize a sick old Huguenot, drag him 
from his bed, and force him towards prison. He died 
upon the road. 

In February, it was ascertained that the Huguenots 
met for worship in a certain cavern. The owner of the 
estate on which the cavern was situated, though unaware 
of the meetings, was fined a thousand crowns, and im- 
prisoned for a year in the Castle of Cret. 

!Next month, Louis Pane, a pastor, was seized at 
Livron while baptizing an infant, taken to Die, and 
hanged. He had scarcely breathed his last, when 
the hangman cut the cord, hewed off the head, and 
made a young Protestant draw the corpse along the 
streets of Die. 

In the month of April, 1745, Jacques Roger, the old 
friend and coadjutor of Court — the apostle of Dauphiny 
as Court had been of Languedoc — -was taken prisoner 
and conducted to Grenoble. Roger was then eighty 
years old, worn out with privation and hard work. He 
was condemned to death. He professed his joy at being 

R 



242 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



still able to seal with his blood the truths he had so often 
proclaimed. On his way to the scaffold, he sang aloud 
the fifty-first Psalm. He was executed in the Place du 
Breuil. After he had hung for twenty-four hours, his 
body was taken down, dragged along the streets of 
Grenoble, and thrown into the Isere. 

At Grenoble also, in the same year, seven persons 
were condemned to the galleys. A young woman 
was publicly whipped at the same place for attending 
a Huguenot meeting. Seven students and pastors who 
could not be found, were hanged in effigy. Four 
houses were demolished for having served as asylums 
for preachers. Fines were levied on all sides, and 
punishments of various kinds were awarded to many 
hundred persons. Thus persecution ran riot in 
Dauphiny in the years 1745 and 1746. 

In Languedoc it was the same. The prisons and 
the galleys were always kept full. Dragoons were 
quartered in the Huguenot villages, and by this 
means the inhabitants were soon ruined. The soldiers 
pillaged the houses, destroyed the furniture, tore up 
the linen, drank all the wine, and, when they were 
in good humour, followed the cattle, swine, and fowl, 
and killed them off sword in hand. Montauban, an 
old Huguenot town, was thus ruined in the course of a 
very few months. 

One day, in a Languedoc village, a soldier seized a 
young girl with a foul intention. She cried aloud, 
and the villagers came to her rescue. The dragoons 
turned out in a body, and fired upon the people. An 
old man was shot dead, a number of the villagers were 
taken prisoners, and, with their hands tied to the 
horses' tails, were conducted for punishment to 
Montauban. 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 243 



All the towns and villages in Upper Languedoc were 
treated with the same cruelty. Msmes was fined over 
and over again. Viverais was treated with the usual 
severity. M. Desubas, the pastor, was taken prisoner 
there, and conducted to Yernoux. As the soldiers led 
him through the country to prison, the villagers came 
out in crowds to see him pass. Many followed the 
pastor, thinking they might be able to induce the 
magistrates of Yernoux to liberate him. The villagers 
were no sooner cooped up in a mass in the chief 
street of the town, than they were suddenly fired 
upon by the soldiers. Thirty persons were killed on 
the spot, more than two hundred were wounded, and 
many afterwards died of their wounds. 

Desubas, the pastor, was conducted to Msmes, and 
from Msmes to Montpellier. YiThile on his way to 
death at Montpellier, some of his peasant friends, 
who lived along the road, determined to rescue 
him. But when Paul Rabaut heard of the proposed 
attempt, he ran to the place where the people had 
assembled and held them back. He was opposed to 
all resistance to the governing power, and thought it 
possible, by patience and righteousness, to live down 
all this horrible persecution. 

Desubas was judged, and, as usual, condemned to 
death. Though it was winter time, he was led to his 
punishment almost naked; his legs uncovered, and 
only a thin linen vest over his body. Arrived at the 
gallows, his books and papers were burnt before his 
eyes, and he was then delivered over to the executioner. 
A Jesuit presented a crucifix for him to kiss, but he 
turned his head to one side, raised his eyes upwards, 
and was then hanged. 

The same persecution prevailed over the greater part 



244 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



of France. In Saintonge, Elie Yivien, the preacher, 
was taken prisoner, and hanged at La Bochelle. His 
body remained for twenty-four hours on the gallows. 
It was then placed upon a forked gibbet, where it 
hung until the bones were picked clean by the crows 
and bleached by the wind and the sun.* 

The same series of persecutions went on from one 
year to another. It was a miserable monotony of 
cruelty. There was hanging for the pastors ; the galleys 
for men attending meetings in the Desert ; the prisons 
and convents for women and children. Wherever it was 
found that persons had been married by the Huguenot 
pastors, they were haled before the magistrate, fined and 
imprisoned, and told that they had been merely living in 
concubinage, and that their children were illegitimate. 

Sometimes it was thought that the persecutors would 
relent. France was again engaged in a disastrous 
war with England and Austria ; and it was feared that 
England would endeavour to stir up a rebellion amongst 
the Huguenots. But the pastors met in a general 
synod, and passed resolutions assuring the government 
of their loyalty to the King, f and of their devotion to 
the laws of France ! 

Their "loyalty" proved of no use. The towns of 
Languedoc were as heavily fined as before, for attending 
meetings in the Desert. J Children were, as usual, taken 

* E. Hughes, "Histoire de la Kestauration," &c./ii. 202. 

f On the 1st of November, 1746, the ministers of Languedoc met 
in haste, and wrote to the Tntendant, Le Nain : " Monseigneur, 
nous n'avons aucune connaissance de ces gens qu'on appelle emis- 
saires, et qu'on dit etre envoyes des pays etrangers pour solliciter les 
Protestants a la revolte. Nous avons exhorte, et nous nous proposons 
d'exhorter encore dans toutes les occasions, nos troupeaux a la souinis- 
sion au souverain et a. la patience dans les afflictions, et de nous 
ecarter jamais de la pratique de ce precepte : Craignez Dieu et 
honorez le roi." 

X Pres de Saint- Ambroix (Cevennes) se tint un jour une assemblee. 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 245 



away from their parents and placed in Jesuit eon- 
vents. Le JNain apprehended Jean Desjours, and had 
him hanged at Montpellier, on the ground that he had 
accompanied the peasants who, as above recited, went 
into Vernoux after the martyr Desubas. 

The Catholics would not even allow Protestant corpses 
to be buried in peace. At Levaur a well-known 
Huguenot died. Two of his friends went to dig a grave 
for him by night ; they were observed by spies and 
informed against. By dint of money and entreaties, 
however, the friends succeeded in getting the dead man 
buried. The populace, stirred up by the White Peni- 
tents (monks), opened the grave, took out the corpse, 
sawed the head from the body, and prepared to commit 
further outrages, when the police interfered, and buried 
the body again, in consideration of the large sum that 
had been paid to the authorities for its interment. 

The populace were always wild for an exhibition of 
cruelty. In Provence, a Protestant named Montague 
died, and was secretly interred. The Catholics having 
discovered the place where he was buried determined to 
disinter him. The grave was opened, and the corpse 
taken out. A cord was attached to the neck, and the 
body was hauled through the village to the music of a 
tambourine and flageolet. At every step it was kicked 
or mauled by the crowd who accompanied it. Under 
the kicks the corpse burst. The furious brutes then 
took out the entrails and attached them to poles, going 
through the village crying, " Who wants preachings ? 
Who wants preachings ?"* 

To such a pitch of brutality had the kings of France 

Survint un detachement. Les femmes et les filles furent depouillees, 
insultees, violees, et quelques hommes furent blesses. — E. Hughes* 
Histoire de la Restaur ation, §c, ii. 212. 
* Antoine Court, " Memoire Historique," 140. 



246 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



and their instigators, the Jesuits — who, since the 
Bevocation of the Edict, had nearly the whole education 
of the country in their hands — reduced the people ; from 
whom they were themselves, however, to suffer almost 
an equal amount of indignity. 

In the midst of these hangings and cruelties, the 
bishops again complained bitterly of the tolerance 
granted to the Huguenots. M. de Montclus, Bishop of 
Alais, urged " that the true cause of all the evils 
that afflict the country was the relaxation of the laws 
against heresy by the magistrates, that they gave them- 
selves no trouble to persecute the Protestants, and that 
their further emigration from the kingdom was no more 
to be feared than formerly." It was, they alleged, a 
great danger to the country that there should be in 
it two millions of men allowed to live without church 
and outside the law.* 

The afflicted Church at this time had many misfortunes 
to contend with. In 1748, the noble, self-denying, inde- 
fatigable Claris died — one of the few Protestant pastors 
who died in his bed. In 1750, the eloquent young 
preacher, Francois Benezet,f was taken and hanged at 
Montpellier. Meetings in the Desert were more 
vigorously attacked and dispersed, and when sur- 
rounded by the soldiers, most persons were shot ; the 
others were taken prisoners. 

The Huguenot pastors repeatedly addressed Louis XY. 
and his ministers, appealing to them for protection 
as loyal subjects. In 1750 they addressed the King in 
a new memorial, respectfully representing that their 
meetings for public worship, sacraments, baptisms, 

* See " Memorial of General Assembly of Clergy to the King," in 
Collection des proces-verbaux, 345. 

f The King granted 480 livres of reward to the spy who detected 
Benezet and procured his apprehension by the soldiers. 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 247 



and marriages, were matters of conscience. They 
added : " Your troops pursue us in the deserts as if we 
were wild beasts; our property is confiscated; our 
children are torn from us ; we are condemned to the 
galleys ; and although our ministers continually exhort 
us to discharge our duty as good citizens and faithful 
subjects, a price is set upon their heads, and when they 
are taken, they are cruelly executed." But Louis XY. 
and his ministers gave no greater heed to this petition 
than they had done to those which had preceded it. 

After occasional relays the Catholic persecutions 
again broke out. In 1752 there was a considerable 
emigration in consequence of a new intendant having 
been appointed to Languedoc. The Catholics called 
upon him to put in force the powers of the law. New 
brooms sweep clean. The Intendant proceeded to carry 
out the law with such ferocity as to excite great 
terror throughout the province. Meetings were sur- 
rounded ; prisoners taken and sent to the galleys ; and 
all the gaols and convents were filled with women and 
children. 

The emigration began again. Many hundred per- 
sons went to Holland ; and a still larger number went 
to settle with their compatriots as silk and poplin 
weavers in Dublin. The Intendant of Languedoc tried 
to stop their flight. The roads were again watched as 
before. All the outlets from the kingdom were closed 
by the royalist troops. Many of the intending emi- 
grants were made prisoners. They were spoiled of 
everything, robbed of their money, and thrown into 
gaol. Nevertheless, another large troop started, passed 
through Switzerland, and reached Ireland at the end of 
the year. 

At the same time, emigration was going on from 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Normandy and Poitou, where persecution was com- 
pelling the people to fly from their own shores and 
take refuge in England. This religious emigration of 
1752 was, however, almost the last which took place 
from France. Though the persecutions were drawing 
to an end, they had not yet come to a close. 

In 1754, the young pastor Tessier (called Lafage), 
had just returned from Lausanne, where he had been 
pursuing his studies for three years. He had been 
tracked by a spy to a certain house, where he had spent 
the night. Next morning the house was surrounded by 
soldiers. Tessier tried to escape by getting out of a 
top window and running along the roofs of the adjoining 
houses. A soldier saw him escaping and shot at him. 
He was severely wounded in the arm. He was captured, 
taken before the Intendant of Languedoc, condemned, 
and hanged in the course of the same day. 

Religious meetings also continued to be surrounded, 
and were treated in the usual brutal manner. For 
instance, an assembly was held in Lower Languedoc on 
the 8th of August, 1756, for the purpose of ordaining 
to the ministry three young men who had arrived from 
Lausanne, where they had been educated. A number 
of pastors were present, and as many as from ten to 
twelve thousand men, women, and children were there 
from the surrounding country. The congregation was 
singing a psalm, when a detachment of soldiers ap- 
proached. The people saw them ; the singing ceased ; 
the pastors urging patience and submission. The soldiers 
fired ; every shot told ; and the crowd fled in all directions. 
The meeting was thus dispersed, leaving the murderers 
— in other words, the gallant soldiers — masters of the 
field ; a long track of blood remaining to mark the site 
orj which the prayer-meeting had been held. 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT 249 



It Is not necessary to recount further cruelties and 
tortures. Assemblies surrounded and people shot ; 
preachers seized and hanged ; men sent to the galleys ; 
women sent to the Tour de Constance ; children 
carried off to the convents — such was the horrible 
ministry of torture in France. When Court heard of 
the re-inflictions of some old form of torture — "Alas/' 
said he, "there is nothing new under the sun. In all 
times, the storm of persecution has cleansed the thresh- 
ing-floor of the Lord." 

And yet, notwithstanding all the bitterness of the 
persecution, the number of Protestants increased. It 
is dim cult to determine their numbers. Their apologists 
said they amounted to three millions ; * their de- 
tractors that they did not amount to four hundred 
thousand. The number of itinerant pastors, however, 
steadily grew. In 1756 there were 48 pastors at work, 
with 22 probationary preachers and students. In 1763 
there were 62 pastors, 35 preachers, and 15 students. 

Then followed the death of Antoine Court himself in 
Switzerland — after watching over the education and 
training of preachers at the Lausanne Seminary. Feel- 
ing his powers begining to fail, he had left Lausanne, 
and resided at Timonex. There, assisted by his son 
Court de Gebelin, Professor of Logic at the College, he 
conducted an immense correspondence with French 
Protestants at home and abroad. 

Court's wife died in 1755, to his irreparable loss. 
His "Rachel," during his many years of peril, had 
been his constant friend and consoler. Unable, after 

* Eipert de Monclar, procureur-general, writing in 1755, says : 
" According to the jurisprudence of this kingdom, there are no French 
Protestants, and yet, according to the truth of facts, there are three 
millions. These imaginary beings fill the towns, provinces, and rural 
districts, and the capital alone contains sixty thousand of them." 



250 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



her death, to live at Timonex, so full of cruel recollec- 
tions, Court returned to Lausanne. He did not 
long survive his wife's death. While engaged in 
writing the history of the Reformed Church of France, 
he was taken ill. His history of the Camisards was 
sent to press, and he lived to revise the first proof- 
sheets. But he did not survive to see the book pub- 
lished. He died on the 15th June, 1760, in the sixty- 
fourth year of his age. 

From the time of Court's death — indeed from the 
time that Court left France to settle at Lausanne — Paul 
Rabaut continued to be looked upon as the leader and 
director of the proscribed Huguenot Church. Rabaut 
originally belonged to Bedarieux in Languedoc. He was 
a great friend of Pradel's. Rabaut served the Church 
at Nismes, and Pradel at Uzes. Both spent two years at 
Lausanne in 1744-5. Court entertained the highest 
affection for Rabaut, and regarded him as his successor. 
And indeed he nobly continued the work which Court 
had begun. 

Besides being zealous, studious, and pious, Rabaut 
was firm, active, shrewd, and gentle. He stood strongly 
upon moral force. Once, when the Huguenots had 
become more than usually provoked by the persecutions 
practised on them, they determined to appear armed at 
the assemblies. Rabaut peremptorily forbade it. If they 
persevered, he would forsake their meetings. He pre- 
vailed, and they came armed only with their Bibles. 

The directness of - Rabaut' s character, the nobility of 
his sentiments, the austerity of his life, and his heroic 
courage, evidently destined him as the head of the 
work which Court had begun. Antoine C&urt ! Paul 
Rabaut ! The one restored Protestantism in France, 
the other rooted and established it. 



THE CHURCH IN THE DESERT. 251 



Rabaut's enthusiasm may be gathered from the 
following extract of a letter which he wrote to a 
friend at Geneva : " When I fix my attention upon 
the divine fire with which, I will not say J esus Christ 
and the Apostles, but the Reformed and their imme- 
diate successors, burned for the salvation of souls, it 
seems to me that, in comparison with them, we are ice. 
Their immense works astound me, and at the same 
time cover me with confusion. What would I not 
give to resemble them in everything laudable ! " 

Eabaut had the same privations, perils, and diffi- 
culties to undergo as the rest of the pastors in the 
Desert. He had to assume all sorts of names and dis- 
guises while he travelled through the country, in order to 
preach at the appointed places. He went by the names 
of M. Paul, M. Denis, M. Pastourel, and M. Theophile ; 
and he travelled under the disguises of a common 
labourer, a trader, a journeyman, and a baker. 

He was condemned to death, as a pastor who preached 
in defiance of the law ; but his disguises were so well 
prepared, and the people for whom he ministered were 
so faithful to him, that the priests and other spies never 
succeeded in apprehending him. Singularly enough, 
he was in all other respects in favour of the recognition 
of legal authority, and strongly urged his brethren never 
to adopt any means whatever of forcibly resisting the 
King's orders. 

Many of the military commanders were becoming 
disgusted with the despicable and cowardly business 
which the priests called upon them to do. Thus, on one 
occasion, a number of Protestants had assembled at the 
house of Paul Rabaut at Msmes, and, while they were 
on their knees, the door was suddenly burst open, when 
a man, muffled up, presented himself, and throwing 



252 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



open his cloak, discovered the military commandant of 
the town. "My friends," he said, "yon have Panl 
Pabaut with you ; in a quarter of an hour I shall be 

here with my soldiers, accompanied by Father , 

who has just laid the information against you." When 
the soldiers arrived, headed by the commandant and 
the father, of course no Paul Pabaut was to be found. 

"For more than thirty years," says one of Paul 
Pabaut's biographers, "caverns and huts, whence he 
was unearthed like a wild animal, were his only habita- 
tion. For a long time he dwelt in a safe hiding-place 
that one of his faithful guides had provided for him, 
under a pile of stones and thorn-bushes. It was dis- 
covered at length by a shepherd, and such was the 
wretchedness of his condition, that, when he was forced 
to abandon the place, he still regretted this retreat, 
which was more fit for savage beasts than men." 

Yet this hut of piled stones was for some time the 
centre of Protestant affairs in France. All the faith- 
ful instinctively turned to Pabaut when assailed by 
fresh difficulties and persecutions, and acted on his 
advice. He obtained the respect even of the Catho- 
lics themselves, because it was known that he was a 
friend of peace, and opposed to all risings and rebel- 
lions amongst his people. 

Once he had the courage to present a petition to the 
Marquis de Paulmy, Minister of War, when changing 
horses at a post-house between Msmes and Montpellier. 
Pabaut introduced himself by name, and the Marquis 
knew that it was the proscribed pastor who stood 
before him. He might have arrested and hanged 
Pabaut on the spot ; but, impressed by the noble bear- 
ing of the pastor, he accepted the petition, and 
promised to lay it before the king. 



CHAPTER XIII 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 

the year 1762, the execution of an unknown Pro- 
J- testant at Toulouse made an extraordinary noise 
in Europe. Protestant pastors had so often been exe- 
cuted, that the punishment had ceased to be a novelty. 
Sometimes they were simply hanged ; at other times 
they were racked, and then hanged ; and lastly, they 
were racked, had their larger bones broken, and were 
then hanged. Yet none of the various tortures practised 
on the Protestant pastors had up to that time excited 
any particular sensation in France itself, and still less 
in Europe. 

Cruelty against French Huguenots was so common 
a thing in those days, that few persons who were of 
any other religion, or of no religion at all, cared any- 
thing about it. The Protestants were altogether 
outside the law. When a Protestant meeting was 
discovered and surrounded, and men, women, and 
children were at once shot down, no one could call the 
murderers in question, because the meetings were 
illegal. The persons taken prisoners at the meetings 
were brought before the magistrates and sentenced to 
punishments even worse than death. They might be 
sent to the galleys, to spend the remainder of their 



254 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



lives amongst thieves, murderers, and assassins. 
Women and children found at such meetings might 
also be sentenced to be imprisoned in the Tour de 
Constance. There were even cases of boys of twelve 
years old having been sent to the galleys for life, 
because of having accompanied their parents to "the 
Preaching."* 

The same cruelties were at that time practised upon the 
common people generally, whether they were Huguenots 
or not. The poor creatures, whose only pleasure con- 
sisted in sometimes hunting a Protestant, were so badly 
off in some districts of France that they even fed upon 
grass. The most distressed districts in France were 
those in which the bishops and clergy were the prin- 
cipal owners of land. They were the last to abandon 
slavery, which continued upon their estates until after 
the Revolution. 

All these abominations had grown up in France, 
because the people had begun to lose the sense of 
individual liberty. Louis XIY. had in his time pro- 
hibited the people from being of any religion different 
from his own. " His Majesty," said his Prime 
Minister Louvois, " will not suffer any person to remain 
in his kingdom who shall not be of his religion." And 
Louis XV. continued the delusion. The whole of the 
tyrannical edicts and ordinances of Louis XIY. con- 
tinued to be maintained. 

It was not that Louis XIY. and Louis XY. were 
kings of any virtue or religion. Both were men of ex- 
ceedingly immoral habits. We have elsewhere described 
Louis XIY., but Louis XY., the Well-beloved, was per- 
haps the greatest profligate of the two. Madame de 
Pompadour, when she ceased to be his mistress, became 
* Mhaiiase Coquerel, "Les Forcats pour la Foi," 91. 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 255 

his procuress. This infamous woman had the command 
of the state purse, and she contrived to build for the 
sovereign a harem, called the Parc-aux-Cerfs, in the 
park of Versailles, which cost the country at least a 
hundred millions of francs.* The number of young girls 
taken from Paris to this place excited great public dis- 
content ; and though morals generally were not very 
high at that time, the debauchery and intemperance of 
the King (for he was almost constantly drunk) f con- 
tributed to alienate the nation, and to foster those 
feelings of hatred which broke forth without restraint 
in the ensuing reign. 

In the midst of all this public disregard for virtue, a 
spirit of ribaldry and disregard for the sanctions of re- 
ligion had long been making its appearance in the 
literature of the time. The highest speculations which 
can occupy the attention of man were touched with a 
recklessness and power, a brilliancy of touch and a 
bitterness of satire, which forced the sceptical pro- 
ductions of the day upon the notice of all who studied, 
read, or delighted in literature ; — for those were the 

* "Madame de Pompadour decouvrit que Louis XV. pourrait lui- 
meme s'amuser a faire l'education de ces jeunes malheureuses. 
De petites filles de neuf a douze ans, lorsqu'elles avaient attire les 
regards de la police par leur beaute, etaient enlevees a leurs meres par 
plusieurs artifices, conduites a Versailles, et retenues dans les parties 
les plus elevees et les plus inaccessibles des petits appartements du 

roi Le nombre des malheureuses qui passerent successive- 

ment a Parc-aux-Cerfs est immense ; a leur sortie elles etaient mariees 
a des hommes vils ou credules auxquels elles apportaient une bonne 
dot. Quelques unes conservaient un traitement fort considerable." 
" Les depenses du Parc-aux-Cerfs, dit Lacratelle, se payaient avec des 
acquits du comptant. II est difficile de les evaluer ; mais il ne peut 
y avoir aucune exageration a affirmer qu' elles couterent plus de 100 
millions a l'Etat. Dans quelques libelles on les porte jusqu'a un 
milliard." — Sismondi, Histoire de Frangaise, Brussels, 1844, xx. 153-4. 
The account given by Sismondi of the debauches of this persecutor of 
the Huguenots is very full. It is not given in the " Old Court Life 
of France," recently written by a lady. 

t Sismondi, xx. 157. 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



days of Yoltaire, Rousseau, Condorcet, and the great 
men of " The Encyclopaedia." 

"While the King indulged in his vicious pleasures, 
and went reeking from his debaucheries to obtain ab- 
solution from his confessors, the persecution of the 
Protestants went on as before. Nor was it until public 
opinion (such as it was) was brought to bear upon 
the hideous incongruity that religious persecutions 
were at once brought summarily to an end. 

The last executions of Huguenots in France because 
of their Protestantism occurred in 1762. Francis 
Rochette, a young pastor, twenty-six years old, was 
laid up by sickness at Montauban. He recovered 
sufficiently to proceed to the waters of St. Antonin for 
the recovery of his health, when he was seized, together 
with his two guides or bearers, by the burgess guard 
of the town of Caussade. The three brothers Grenier 
endeavoured to intercede for them ; but the mayor of 
Caussade, proud of his capture, sent the whole of the 
prisoners to gaol. 

They were tried by the judges of Toulouse on the 
18th of February. Rochette was condemned to be 
hung in his shirt, his head and feet uncovered, with a 
paper pinned on his shirt before and behind, with the 
words written thereon — " Ministre de la religion pre- 
tendue reformee." The three brothers Grenier, who 
interfered on behalf of Rochette, were ordered to have 
their heads taken off for resisting the secular power ; 
and the two guides, who were bearing the sick Rochette 
to St. Antonin for the benefit of the waters, were sent 
to the galleys for life. 

Barbarous punishments such as these were so common 
when Protestants were the offenders, that the decision 
of the judges did not excite any particular sensation. 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 257 

It was only when Jean Calas was shortly after executed 
at Toulouse that an extraordinary sensation was pro- 
duced — and that not because Calas was a Protestant, but 
because his punishment came under the notice of Vol- 
taire, who exposed the inhuman cruelty to France, 
Europe, and the world at large. 

The reason why Protestant executions terminated 
with the death of Calas was as follows : — The family 
of Jean Calas resided at Toulouse, then one of the 
most bigoted cities in France. Toulouse swarmed 
with priests and monks, more Spanish than French 
in their leanings. They were great in relics, proces- 
sions, and confraternities. While " mealy-mouthed " 
Catholics in other quarters were becoming some- 
what ashamed of the murders perpetrated during 
the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and were even dis- 
posed to deny them, the more outspoken Catholics 
of Toulouse were even proud of the feat, and 
publicly celebrated the great southern Massacre of 
St. Bartholomew which took place in 1562. The 
procession then held was one of the finest church 
commemorations in the south ; it was followed by 
bishops, clergy, and the people of the neighbourhood, 
in immense numbers. 

Calas was an old man of sixty-four, and reduced to 
great weakness by a paralytic complaint. He and his 
family were all Protestants excepting one son, who had 
become a Catholic. Another of the sons, however, a 
man of ill- regulated life, dissolute, and involved in 
pecuniary difficulties, committed suicide by hanging 
himself in an outhouse. 

On this, the brotherhood of White Penitents stirred 
up a great fury against the Protestant family in the 
minds of the populace. The monks alleged that Jean 

S 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Galas had murdered his son because he wished to 
become a Catholic. They gave out that it was a 
practice of the Protestants to keep an executioner 
to murder their children who wished to abjure the 
reformed faith, and that one of the objects of the 
meetings which they held in the Desert, was to elect 
this executioner. The White Penitents celebrated 
mass for the suicide's soul ; they exhibited his figure 
with a palm branch in his hand, and treated him as a 
martyr. 

The public mind "became inflamed. A fanatical 
judge, called David, took up the case, and ordered 
Calas and his whole family to be sent to prison. 
Calas was tried by the court of Toulouse. They tortured 
the whole family to compel them to confess the murder ;* 
but they did not confess. The court wished to burn 
the mother, but they ended by condemning the paralytic 
father to be broken alive on the wheel. f The parlia- 
ment of Toulouse confirmed the atrocious sentence, and 
the old man perished in torments, declaring to the last 
his entire innocence. The rest of the family were 
discharged, although if there had been any truth in 
the charge for which Jean Calas was racked to death, 

* Sismondi, xx. 328. 

t To be broken alive on the wheel was one of the most horrible of 
tortures, a bequest from ages of violence and barbarism. It was 
preserved in France mainly for the punishment of Protestants. The 
prisoner was extended on a St. Andrew' s cross, with eight notches cut on it 
— one below each arm between the elbow and wrist, another between 
each elbow and the shoulders, one under each thigh, and one under 
each leg. The executioner, armed with a heavy triangular bar of 
iron, gave a heavy blow on each of these eight places, and broke the 
bone. Another blow was given in the pit of the stomach. The 
mangled victim was lifted from the cross and stretched on a small 
wheel placed vertically at one of the ends of the cross, his back on the 
upper part of the wheel, his head and feet hanging down. There the 
tortured creature hung until he died. Some lingered five or six 
hours, others much longer. This horrible method of torture was 
only abolished at the French Revolution in 1790. 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 



they must necessarily have been his accomplices, and 
equally liable to punishment. 

The ruined family left Toulouse and made for Geneva, 
then the head-quarters of Protestants from the South of 
France. And here it was that the murder of Jean 
Calas and the misfortunes of the Calas family came 
under the notice of Voltaire, then living at Ferney, 
near Geneva. 

In the midst of the persecutions of the Protestants a 
great many changes had been going on in France. 
Although the clergy had for more than a century the 
sole control of the religious education of the people, the 
people had not become religious. They had become 
very ignorant and very fanatical. The upper classes 
were anything but religious; they were given up for 
the most part to frivolity and libertinage. The ex- 
amples of their kings had been freely followed. Though 
ready to do honour to the court religion, the higher 
classes did not believe in it. The press was very free for 
the publication of licentious and immoral books, but not 
for Protestant Bibles. A great work was, however, in 
course of publication, under the editorship of D'Alem- 
bert and Diderot, to which Yoltaire, Eousseau, and 
others contributed, entitled " The Encyclopaedia.' ' It 
was a description of the entire circle of human know- 
ledge ; but the dominant idea which pervaded it was the 
utter subversion of religion. 

The abuses of the Church, its tyranny and cruelty, 
the ignorance and helplessness in which it kept the 
people, the frivolity and unbelief of the clergy them- 
selves, had already condemned it in the minds of the 
nation. The writers in " The Encyclopaedia " merely 
gave expression to their views, and the publication of 
its successive numbers was received with rapture. In 



260 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



the midst of the free publication of obscene books, 
there had also appeared, before the execution of 
Calas, the Marquis de Mirabeau's " Ami de Hommes," 
Rousseau's " Emile," the " Contrat Sociale," with 
other works, denying religion of all kinds, and 
pointing to the general downfall, which was now fast 
approaching. 

When the Galas family took refuge in Geneva, 
Voltaire soon heard of their story. It was communi- 
cated to him by M. de Vegobre, a French refugee. 
After he had related it, Voltaire said, " This is a horrible 
story. What has become of the family ?" "They 
arrived in Geneva only three days ago." " In Geneva ! " 
said Yoltaire ; " then let me see them at once." Madame 
Calas soon arrived, told him the whole facts of the case, 
and convinced Yoltaire of the entire innocence of the 
family. 

Yoltaire was no friend of the Huguenots. He be- 
lieved the Huguenot spirit to be a republican spirit. 
In his "Siecle de Louis XIV.," when treating of the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he affirmed that 
the Reformed were the enemies of the State ; and 
though he depicted feelingly the cruelties they had 
suffered, he also stated clearly that he thought they 
had deserved them. Yoltaire probably owed his hatred 
of the Protestants to the Jesuits, by whom he was 
educated. He was brought up at the Jesuit College of 
Louis le Grand, the chief persecutor of the Huguenots. 
Voltaire also owed much of the looseness of his prin- 
ciples to his godfather, the Abbe Chateauneuf, grand- 
prior of Vendome, the Abbe de Chalieu, and others, 
who educated him in an utter contempt for the doctrines 
they were appointed and paid to teach. It was when 
but a mere youth that Father Lejay, one of Voltaire's 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 261 



instructors, predicted that lie would yet be the Cory- 
phasus of Deism in France. 

Nor was Yoltaire better pleased with the Swiss Calvin - 
ists. He encountered some of the most pedantic of them 
while residing at Lausanne and Greneva.* At the latter 
place, he covered with sarcasm the " twenty- four peri- 
wigs" — the Protestant council of the city. They 
would not allow him to set up a theatre in Gfeneva, so 
he determined to set up one himself at La Chatelaine, 
about a mile off, but beyond the Genevese frontier. 
His object, he professed, was "to corrupt the pedantic 
city." The theatre is still standing, though it is now 
used only as a hayloft. The box is preserved from 
which Yoltaire cheered the performance of his own and 
other plays. 

But though Yoltaire hated Protestantism like every 
other religion, he also hated injustice. It was because 
of this that he took up the case of the Calas family, so 
soon as he had become satisfied of their innocence. 
But what a difficulty he had to encounter in endeavour- 
ing to upset the decision of the judges, and the con- 
demnation of Calas by the parliament of Toulouse. 
Moreover, he had to reverse their decision against a 
dead man, and that man a detested Huguenot. 

Nevertheless Yoltaire took up the case. He wrote 
letters to his friends in all parts of France. He wrote 
to the sovereigns of Europe. He published letters in 
the newspapers. He addressed the Duke de Choiseul, 
vthe King's Secretary of State. He appealed to philo- 

* While Voltaire lived at Lausanne, one of the baillies (the chief 
magistrates of the city) said to him : " Monsieur de Voltaire, they say 
that you have written against the good God : it is very wrong, but I 

hope He will pardon you But, Monsieur de Voltaire, take 

very good care not to write against their excellencies of Berne, our 
sovereign lords, for be assured that they will never forgive you." 



262 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



sophers, to men of letters, to ladies of the court, and 
even to priests and bishops, denouncing the sentence 
pronounced against Calas, — the most iniquitous, he said, 
that any court professing to act in the name of justice 
had ever pronounced. Ferney was visited by many 
foreigners, from Germany, America, England, and 
Russia ; as well as by numerous persons of influence in 
France. To all these he spoke vehemently of Calas 
and his sentence. He gave himself no rest until he 
had inflamed the minds of all men against the horrible 
injustice. 

At length, the case of Calas became known all over 
France, and in fact all over Europe. The press of 
Paris rang with it. In the boudoirs and salons, Calas 
was the subject of conversation. In the streets, men 
meeting each other would ask, "Have you heard of 
Calas?" The dead man had already become a hero 
and a martyr ! 

An important point was next reached. It was 
decided that the case of Calas should be remitted to a 
special court of judges appointed to consider the whole 
matter. Voltaire himself proceeded to get up the case. 
He prepared and revised the memorials, he revised all 
the ^pleadings of the advocates, transforming them into 
brief, conclusive arguments, sparkling with wit, reason, 
and eloquence. The revision of the process commenced. 
The people held their breaths while it proceeded. 

At length, in the spring of 1766 — four years after 
Calas had been broken to death on the wheel — four 
years after Voltaire had undertaken to have the unjust 
decision of the Toulouse magistrates and parliament 
reversed, the court of judges, after going completely 
over the evidence, pronounced the judgment to have 
been entirely unfounded ! 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 263 



Tlie decree was accordingly reversed. Jean Galas was 
declared to have been innocent. The man was, how- 
ever, dead. But in order to compensate his family, the 
ministry granted 36,000 francs to Calas's widow, on 
the express recommendation of the court which re- 
versed the abominable sentence.* 

The French people never forgot Yoltaire's efforts in 
this cause. Notwithstanding all his offences against 
morals and religion, Yoltaire on this occasion acted on 
his best impulses. Many years after, in 1778, he 
visited Paris, where he was received with immense 
enthusiasm. He was followed in the streets wherever 
he went. One day when passing along the Pont 
Royal, some person asked, "Who is that man the 
crowd is following ?" " Ne savez vous pas," answered 
a common woman, " que c'est le sauveur de Galas ! " 
Yoltaire was more touched with this simple tribute to 
his fame than with all the adoration of the Parisians. 

It was soon found, however, that there were many 
persons still suffering in France from the cruelty of 
priests and judges; and one of these occurred shortly 
after the death of Calas. One of the ordinary practices 
of the Catholics was to seize the children of Protestants 
and carry them off to some nunnery to be educated at 
the expense of their parents. The priests of Toulouse 
had obtained a lettre de cachet to take away the daughter 
of a Protestant named Sirven, to compel her to change 
her religion. She was accordingly seized and carried 
off to a nunnery. She manifested such reluctance to 
embrace Catholicism, and she was treated with such 
cruelty, that she fled from the convent in the night, 
and fell into a well, where she was found drowned. 

* It may be added that, after the reversal of the sentence, David, 
the judge who had first condemned Calas, went insane, and died in a 
madhouse. 



264 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



The prejudices of the Catholic bigots being very 
much excited about this time by the case of Calas, 
blamed the family of Sirven (in the same manner as 
they had done that of Calas) with murdering their 
daughter. Foreseeing that they would be apprehended 
if they remained, the whole family left the city, and 
set out for Geneva. After they left, Sirven was in 
fact sentenced to death par contumace. It was about 
the middle of winter when they set out, and Sirven' s wife 
died of cold on the way, amidst the snows of the Jura. 

On his arrival at Geneva, Sirven stated his case to 
Yoltaire, who took it up as he had done that of Calas. 
He exerted himself as before. Advocates of the highest 
rank offered to conduct Sirven's case ; for public opinion 
had already made considerable progress. Sirven was 
advised to return to Toulouse, and offer himself as a 
prisoner. He did so. The case was tried with the 
same results as before ; the advocates, acting under 
Voltaire's instructions and with his help, succeeded in 
obtaining the judges' unanimous decision that Sirven 
was innocent of the crime for which he had already 
been sentenced to death. 

After this, there were no further executions of Pro- 
testants in France. But what became of the Huguenots 
at the galleys, who still continued to endure a punish- 
ment from day to day, even worse than death itself? * 

* The Huguenots sometimes owed their release from the galleys to 
money payments made by Protestants (but this was done secretly), 
the price of a galley-slave being about a thousand crowns ; sometimes 
they owed it to the influence of Protestant princes; but never to 
the voluntary mercy of the Catholics. In 1742, while Prance was at 
war with England, and Prussia was quietly looking on, Antoine 
Court made an appeal to Frederick the Great, and at his interven- 
tion with Louis XV. thirty galley-slaves were liberated. The 
Margrave of Bayreuth, Culmbach and his wife, the sister of the 
Great Frederick, afterwards visited the galleys at Toulon, and suc- 
ceeded in obtaining the liberation of several galley-slaves. 1 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 



265 



Although they were often cut off by fever, starvation, 
and exposure, many of them contrived to live on to a 
considerable age. After the trials of Calas and Sirven, 
the punishment of the galleys was evidently drawing 
to an end. Only two persons were sent to the galleys 
during the year in which Pastor Pochette was hanged. 
But a circumstance came to light respecting one of the 
galley-slaves who had been liberated in that very year 
(1762), which had the effect of eventually putting an 
end to the cruelty. 

The punishment was not, however, abolished by 
Christian feeling, or by greater humanity on the part 
of the Catholics ; nor was it abolished through the 
ministers of justice, and still less by the order of the 
King. It was put an end to by the Stage ! As 
Yoltaire, the Deist, terminated the hanging of Pro- 
testants, so did Fenouillot, the player, put an end to 
their serving as galley-slaves. The termination of this 
latter punishment has a curious history attached to it. 

It happened that a Huguenot meeting for worship 
was held in the neighbourhood of Nismes, on the first 
day of J anuary, 1756. The place of meeting was called 
the Lecque,* situated immediately north of the Tour 
Magne, from which the greater part of the city has 
been built. It was a favourable place for holding 
meetings ; but it_was not so favourable for those who 
wished to escape. The assembly had scarcely been 
constituted by prayer, when the alarm was given that 
the soldiers were upon them ! The people fled on all 
sides. The youngest and most agile made their escape 
by climbing the surrounding rocks. 

Amongst these, Jean Fabre, a young silk merchant 

* This secret meeting-place of the Huguenots is well known from 
the engraved picture of Buze. 



266 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



of Nismes, was already beyond reach, of danger, when he 
heard that his father had been made a prisoner. The 
old man, who was seventy -eight, could not climb as 
the others had done, and the soldiers had taken him 
and were leading him away. The son, who knew that 
his father would be sentenced to the galleys for life, 
immediately determined, if possible, to rescue him from 
this horrible fate. He returned to the group of soldiers 
who had his father in charge, and asked them to take 
him prisoner in his place. On their refusal, he seized 
his father and drew him from their grasp, insisting 
upon them taking himself instead. The sergeant in 
command at first refused to adopt this strange sub- 
stitution; but, conquered at last by the tears and 
prayers of the son, he liberated the aged man and 
accepted J ean Fabre as his prisoner. 

Jean Fabre was first imprisoned at Msmes, where he 
was prevented seeing any of his friends, including a cer- 
tain young lady to whom he was about shortly to be 
married. He was then transferred to Montpellier to 
be judged ; where, of course, he was condemned, as he 
expected, to be sent to the galleys for life. With this 
dreadful prospect before him, of separation from all that 
he loved — from his father, for whom he was about to suffer 
so much ; from his betrothed, who gave up all hope of 
ever seeing him again — and having no prospect of 
being relieved from his horrible destiny, his spirits 
failed, and he became seriously ill. But his youth and 
Christian resignation came to his aid, and he finally 
recovered. 

The Protestants of Nismes, and indeed of all 
Languedoc, were greatly moved by the fate of Jean 
Fabre. The heroism of his devotion to his parent soon 
became known, and the name of the volunteer convict 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 267 



was in every mouth. The Due de Mirepoix, then gover- 
nor of the province, endeavoured to turn the popular 
feeling to some account. He offered pardon to Fabre 
and Turgis (who had been taken prisoner with him) 
provided Paul Rabaut, the chief pastor of the Desert, 
a hard-working and indefatigable man, would leave 
France and reside abroad. But neither Fabre, nor 
Rabaut, nor the Huguenots generally, had any confi- 
dence in the mercy of the Catholics, and the proposal 
was coldly declined. 

Fabre was next sent to Toulon under a strong escort 
of cavalry. He was there registered in the class of 
convicts ; his hair was cut close ; he was clothed in the 
ignominious dress of the galley-slave, and placed in a 
galley among murderers and criminals, where he was 
chained to one of the worst. The dinner consisted of a 
porridge of cooked beans and black bread. At first he 
could not touch it, and preferred to suffer hunger. A 
friend of Fabre, who was informed of his starvation, 
sent him some food more savoury and digestible ; but 
his stomach was in such a state that he could not eat 
even that. At length he became accustomed to the 
situation, though the place was a sort of hell, in which 
he was surrounded by criminals in rags, dirt, and 
vermin, and, worst of all, distinguished for their 
abominable vileness of speech. He was shortly after 
seized with a serious illness, when he was sent to 
the hospital, where he found many Huguenot 
convicts imprisoned, like himself, because of their 
religion.* 

Repeated applications were made to Saint-Florentin, 
the Secretary of State, by Fabre's relatives, friends, 

* Letter of Jean Fabre, in Athanase Cocquerel's " Forcats pour la 
Foi," 201-3. 



2 6S 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



and fellow Protestants for his liberation, but without 
result. After he had been imprisoned for some years, 
a circumstance happened which more than anything 
else exasperated his sufferings. The young lady to 
whom he was engaged had an offer of marriage made 
to her by a desirable person, which her friends were 
anxious that she should accept. Her father had been 
struck by paralysis, and was poor and unable to main- 
tain himself as well as his daughter. He urged that 
she should give up Fabre, now hopelessly imprisoned 
for life, and accept her new lover. 

Fabre himself was consulted on the subject ; his con- 
science was appealed to, and how did he decide ? It 
was only after the bitterest struggle, that he determined 
on liberating his betrothed. He saw no prospect of 
his release, and why should he sacrifice her ? Let her 
no longer be bound up with his fearful fate, but be 
happy with another if she could. 

The young lady yielded, though not without great 
misgivings. The day for her marriage with her nevr 
lover was fixed ; but, at the last moment, she relented. 
Her faithfulness and love for the heroic galley-slave 
had never been shaken, and she resolved to remain 
constant to him, to remain unmarried if need be, or 
to wait for his liberation until death ! 

It is probable that her noble decision determined 
Fabre and Fabre' s friends to make a renewed effort for 
his liberation. At last, after having been more than 
six years a galley-slave, he bethought him of a method 
of obtaining at least a temporary liberty. He proposed 
— without appealing to Saint-Florentin, who was the 
bitter enemy of the Protestants — to get his case made 
known to the Due de Choiseul, Minister of Marine. 
This nobleman was a just man, and it had been in a 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 269 



^reat measure through, his influence that the judgment 
of Calas had been reconsidered and reversed. 

Fabre, while on the rowers' bench, had often met 
with a M. Johannot, a French Protestant, settled at 
Frankfort-on-Maine, to whom he stated his case. It 
may be mentioned that Huguenot refugees, on their 
visits to France, often visited the Protestant prisoners 
at the galleys, relieved their wants, and made inter- 
cession for them with the outside world. It may also 
be incidentally mentioned that this M. J ohannot was 
the ancestor of two well-known painters and designers, 
Alfred and Tony, who have been the illustrators of some 
of our finest artistic works. 

Johannot made the case of Fabre known to some 
French officers whom he met at Frankfort, interested 
them greatly in his noble character and self-sacrifice, 
and the result was that before long Fabre obtained, 
directly from the Due de Choiseul, leave of absence 
from the position of galley-slave. The annoyance of 
Saint-Florentin, Minister of State, was so well-known, 
that Fabre, on his liberation, was induced to conceal 
himself. Nor could he yet marry his promised wife, as 
he had not been discharged, but was only on leave of 
absence; and Saint-Florentin obstinately refused to re- 
verse the sentence that had been pronounced against him. 

In the meantime, Fabre' s name was becoming cele- 
brated. He had no idea, while privately settled at 
Ganges as a silk stocking maker, that great people in 
France were interesting themselves about his fate. The 
Duchesse de Grammont, sister of the Due de Choiseul, 
had heard about him from her brother ; and the Prince 
de Beauvau, governor of Languedoc, the Duchesse de 
Villeroy, and many other distinguished personages, 
were celebrating his heroism. 



270 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



Inquiry was made of the sergeant who had originally 
apprehended Fabre, upon his offering himself in 
exchange for his father (long since dead), and the 
sergeant confirmed the truth of the noble and generous 
act. At the same time, M. Alison, first consul at 
Msmes, confirmed the statement by three witnesses, in 
presence of the secretary of the Prince de Beauvau. 
The result was, that Jean Fabre was completely 
exonerated from the charge on account of which he 
had been sent to the galleys. He was now a free man, 
and at last married the young lady who had loved him 
so long and so devotedly. 

One day, to his extreme surprise, Fabre received 
from the Due de Choiseul a packet containing a drama, 
in which he found his own history related in verse, by 
Fenouillot de Falbaire. It was entitled " The Honest 
Criminal." Fabre had never been a criminal, except 
in worshipping God according to his conscience, 
though that had for nearly a hundred years been pro- 
nounced a crime by the law of France. 

The piece, which was of no great merit as a tragedy, 
was at first played before the Duchesse de Villeroy and 
her friends, with great applause, Mdlle. Clairon 
playing the principal female part. Saint-Florentin 
prohibited the playing of the piece in public, protesting 
to the last against the work and the author. Yoltaire 
played it at Ferney, and Queen Marie Antoinette had 
it played in her presence at Versailles. It was not 
until 1789 that the piece was played in the theatres of 
Paris, when it had a considerable success. 

"We do not find that any Protestants were sent to 
be galley-slaves after 1762, the year that Calas was 
executed. A reaction against this barbarous method of 
treating men for differences of opinion seems to have 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 271 



set in ; or, perhaps, it was because most men were 
ceasing to believe in the miraculous powers of the 
priests, for which the Protestants had so long been 
hanged and made galley-slaves. 

After the liberation of Fab re in 1762, other galley- 
slaves were liberated from time to time. Thus, in the 
same year, Jean Albiges and Jean Barran were liberated 
after eight years of convict life. They had been con- 
demned for assisting at Protestant assemblies. Next 
year, Maurice was liberated ; he had been condemned 
for life for the same reason. 

While Yoltaire had. been engaged in the case a of 
Galas he asked the Due de Choiseul for the liberation of 
a galley-slave. The man for whom he interceded, had 
been a convict twenty years for attending a Protestant 
meeting. Of course, Yoltaire cared nothing for his 
religion, believing Catholicism and Protestantism to be 
only two forms of the same superstition. The name of 
this galley-slave was Claude Chaumont. Like nearly 
all the other convicts he was a working man — a little 
dark-faced shoemaker. Some Protestant friends he had 
at Gfeneva interceded with Yoltaire for his liberation. 

On Chaumont's release in 1764, he waited upon his 
deliverer to thank him. " "What ! " said Yoltaire, on 
first seeing him, " my poor little bit of a man, have they 
put you in the galleys ? What could they have done 
with you ? The idea of sending a little creature 
to the galley-chain, for no other crime than that of 
praying to Grod in bad French ! " * Yoltaire ended 
by handing the impoverished fellow a sum of money 
to set him up in the world again, when he left the 
house the happiest of men. 

We may briefly mention a few of the last of the 
* "Yoltaire et les G-enevois," par J. Gaberel, 74-5. 



272 



THE HUGUENOTS 



galley-slaves. Daniel Bic and Jean Cabdie, liberated 
in 1764, for attending religious meetings. Both were 
condemned for life, and had been at the galley-chain 
for ten years. 

Jean Pierre Espinas, an attorney, of St. Felix de 
Chateauneuf, in Viverais, who had been condemned for 
life for having given shelter to a pastor, was released 
in 1765, at the age of sixty- seven, after being chained 
at the galleys for twenty- five years. 

Jean Raymond, of Fangeres, the father of six chil- 
dren, who had been a galley-slave for thirteen years, 
was liberated in 1767. Alexandre Chambon, a labourer, 
more than eighty years old, condemned for life in 1741, 
for attending a religious meeting, was released in 1769, 
on the entreaty of Yoltaire, after being a galley-slave 
for twenty-eight years. His friends had forgotten 
him, and on his release he was utterly destitute and 
miserable.* 

In 1772, three galley-slaves were liberated from their 
chains. Andre Gfuisard, a labourer, aged eighty-two, 
Jean Roque, and Louis Tregon, of the same class, all 
condemned for life for attending religious meetings. 
Thev had all been confined at the chain for twenty 
years. 

The two last galley-slaves were liberated in 1775, 
during the first year of the reign of Louis XVI., and 
close upon the outbreak of the French Revolution. 
They had been quite forgotten, until Court de Gebelin, 
son of Antoine Court, discovered them. When he 
applied for their release to M. de Boyne, Minister of 
Marine, he answered that there were no more Pro- 
testant convicts at the galleys ; at least, he believed so. 

* " Lettres inedites des Voltaire," publiees par Athanase Coquerel 
fils, 247. 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 273 



Shortly after, Turgot succeeded Boyne, and application 
was made to him. He answered that there was no need 
to recommend such objects to him for liberation, as they 
were liberated already. 

On the two old men being told they were released, 
they burst into tears ; but were almost afraid of return- 
ing to the world which no longer knew them. One of 
them was Antoine Bialle, a tailor of Aoste, in Dau- 
phiny, who had been condemned by the parliament of 
Grenoble to the galleys for life " for contravening the 
edicts of the King concerning religion." He was 
seventy-eight years old, and had been a galley-slave for 
thirty years. 

The other, Paul Achard, had been a shoemaker of 
Chatillon, also in Dauphiny. He was condemned to be 
a galley-slave for life by the parliament of Grenoble, 
for having given shelter to a pastor. Achard had also 
been confined at the galleys for thirty years. 

It is not known when the last Huguenot women were 
liberated from the Tour de Constance, at Aiguesmorts. 
It would probably be about the time when the last 
Huguenots were liberated from the galleys. An affect- 
ing picture has been left by an officer who visited 
the prison at the release of the last prisoners. " I 
accompanied," he says, " the Prince de Beauveau (the 
intendant of Languedoc under Louis XYI.) in a sur- 
vey which he made of the coast. Arriving at Aigues- 
morts, at the gate of the Tour de Constance, we found 
at the entrance the principal keeper, who conducted us 
by dark steps through a great gate, which opened with 
an ominous noise, and over which was inscribed a motto 
from Dante — ' Lasciate ogni speranza voi che'ntrate.' 

" Words fail me to describe the horror with which we 
regarded a scene to which we were so unaccustomed — 

T 



274 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



a frightful and affecting picture, in which the interest 
was heightened by disgust. We beheld a large circular 
apartment, deprived of air and of light, in which 
fourteen females still languished in misery. It was 
with difficulty that the Prince smothered his emo- 
tion ; and doubtless it was the first time that these 
unfortunate creatures had there witnessed compassion 
depicted upon a human countenance ; I still seem to 
behold the affecting apparition. They fell at our feet, 
bathed in tears, and speechless, until, emboldened by 
our expressions of sympathy, they recounted to us their 
sufferings. Alas ! all their crime consisted in having 
been attached to the same religion as Henry IV. The 
youngest of these martyrs was more than fifty years old. 
She was but eight when first imprisoned for having 
accompanied her mother to hear a religious service, and 
her punishment had continued until now ! " * 

After the liberation of the last of the galley-slaves 
there were no further apprehensions nor punishments 
of Protestants. The priests had lost their power ; and 
the secular authority no longer obeyed their behests. 
The nation had ceased to believe in them ; in some 
places they were laughed at ; in others they were de- 
tested. They owed this partly to their cruelty and 
intolerance, partly to their luxury and self-indulgence 
amidst the poverty of the people, and partly to the 
sarcasms of the philosophers, who had become more 
powerful in France than themselves. " It is not 
enough," said Yoltaire, "that we prove intolerance to 
be horrible ; we must also prove to the French that it 
is ridiculous." 

In looking back at the sufferings of the Huguenots 
remaining in France since the Revocation of the Edict 
* Froissard, " Nism.es et ses Environs," ii. 217. 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 275 



of Nantes ; at the purity, self-denial, honesty, and in- 
dustry of their lives ; at the devotion with which they 
adhered to religious duty and the worship of Gfod ; we 
cannot fail to regard them — labourers and peasants 
though they were — as amongst the truest, greatest, and 
worthiest heroes of their age. When society in 
France was falling to pieces ; when its men and women 
were ceasing to believe in themselves and in each other ; 
when the religion of the State had become a mass of 
abuse, consistent only in its cruelty ; when the de- 
bauchery of its kings* had descended through the 
aristocracy to the people, until the whole mass was 
becoming thoroughly corrupt ; these poor Huguenots 
seem to have been the only constant and true men, the 
only men holding to a great idea, for which they were 
willing to die — for they were always ready for martyr- 
dom by the rack, the gibbet, or the galleys, rather than 
forsake the worship of God freely and according to 
conscience. 

But their persecution was now in a great measure at 

* Such was the dissoluteness of the manners of the court, that no 
less than 500,000,000 francs of the public debt, or £20,000,000 sterling, 
had been incurred for expenses too ignominious to bear the light, or 
even to be named in the public accounts. It appears from an 
authentic document, quoted in Soulavie's history, that in the sixteen 
months immediately preceding the death of Louis XV., Madame du 
Barry (originally a courtezan,) had drawn from the royal treasury 
no less than 2,450,000 francs, or equal to about £200,000 of 
our present money. ["Histoire de la Decadence de la Monarchic 
Franchise," par Soulavie l'Aine, iii. 330.] "La corruption," says 
Lacretelle, " entrait dans les plus paisibles menages, dans les families 
les plus obscures. Elle [Madame du Barri] etait savamment et long- 
temps combinee par ceux qui servaient les debauches de Louis. Des 
emissaires etaient employees a seduire des filles qui n' etaient point 
encore nubiles, a combattre dans de jeunes femmes des principes de 
pudeur et de fidelite. Amant de grade, il livrait a la prostitution 
publique celles de ses sujettes qu'il avait prematurement corrompues. 
II souffrait que les enfans de ses infames plaisirs partageassent la 
destinee obscure et dangereuse de ceux qu'un pere n'avoue point." 
Lacretelle, Histoire de France pendant le xviii Siecle, iii. 171-173. 



276 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



an end. It is true the Protestants were not recognised, 
but they nevertheless held their worship openly, and 
were not interfered with. When Louis XYI. succeeded 
to the throne in 1774, on the administration of the 
oath for the extermination of heretics denounced by 
the Church, the Archbishop of Toulouse said to him : 
•" It is reserved for you to strike the final blow against 
Calvinism in your dominions. Command the dis- 
persion of the schismatic assemblies of the Protestants, 
exclude the sectarians, without distinction, from all 
offices of the public administration, and you will insure 
among your subjects the unity of the true Christian 
religion." 

No attention was paid to this and similar appeals for 
the restoration of intolerance. On the contrary, an 
Edict of Toleration was issued by Louis XYI. in 1787, 
which, though granting a legal existence to the Pro- 
testants, nevertheless set forth that " The Catholic, 
Apostolic, and Poman religion alone shall continue to 
enjoy the right of public worship in our realm. ; ' 

Opinion, however, moved very fast in those days. 
The Declaration of Pights of 1789 overthrew the 
barriers which debarred the admission of Protestants 
to public offices. On the question of tolerance, 
Pabaut Saint-Etienne, son of Paul Pabaut, who sat 
in the National Assembly for Msmes, insisted on the 
freedom of the Protestants to worship Grod after their 
accustomed forms. He said he represented a consti- 
tuency of 360,000, of whom 120,000 were Protestants. 
The penal laws against the worship of the Peformed, 
he said, had never been formally abolished. He claimed 
the rights of Frenchmen for two millions of useful 
citizens. It was not toleration he asked for, it was 
liberty" 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 277 



" Toleration ! " he exclaimed ; " sufferance ! pardon ! 
clemency ! ideas supremely unjust towards the Protest- 
ants, so long as it is true that difference of religion, that 
difference of opinion, is not a crime ! Toleration ! T 
demand that toleration should be proscribed in its turn, 
and deemed an iniquitous word, dealing with us as 
citizens worthy of pity, as criminals to whom pardon 
is to be granted ! "* 

The motion before the House was adopted with 
modification, and all Frenchmen, without distinction 
of religious opinions, were declared admissible to all 
offices and employments. Four months later, on 
the 15th March, 1790, Eabaut Saint-Etienne him- 
self, son of the long proscribed pastor of the Desert, 
was nominated President of the Constituent As- 
sembly, succeeding to the chair of the Abbe Montes- 
quieu. 

He did not, however, occupy the position long. In 
the struggles of the Convention he took part with the 
Girondists, and refused to vote for the death of 
Louis XYI. He maintained an obstinate struggle 
against the violence of the Mountain. His arrest was 
decreed ; he was dragged before the revolutionary 
tribunal, and condemned to be executed within 
twenty-four hours. 

The horrors of the French Revolution hide the doings 
of Protestantism and Catholicism alike for several years, 
until Buonaparte came into power. He recognised 
Catholicism as the established religion, and paid for 
the maintenance of the bishops and priests. He also 
protected Protestantism, the members of which were 
entitled to all the benefits secured to the other Chris- 

* "History of the Protestants of France," by G. de Felice, book 
v. sect. i. 



278 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



tian communions, " with the exception of pecuniary 
subvention." 

The comparative liberty which the Protestants of 
France had enjoyed under the Republic and the 
Empire seemed to be in some peril at the restoration 
of the Bourbons. The more bigoted Roman Catholics 
of the South hailed their return as the precursors of 
renewed persecution : and they raised the cry of " Un 
Dieu, un Roi, une Foi." 

The Protestant mayor of Msmes was publicly in- 
sulted, and compelled to resign his office. The mob 
assembled in the streets and sang ferocious songs, 
threatening to " make black puddings of the blood of 
the Calvinists , children."* Another St. Bartholomew 
was even threatened ; the Protestants began to con- 
ceal themselves, and many fled for refuge to the 
Upper Cevennes. Houses were sacked, their in mates 
outraged, and in many cases murdered. 

The same scenes occurred in most of the towns and 
villages of the department of Grard ; and the authorities 
seemed to be powerless to prevent them. The Protestants 
at length began to take up arms for their defence ; the 
peasantry of the Cevennes brought from their secret 
places the rusty arms which their fathers had wielded 
more than a century before ; and another Camisard 
war seemed imminent. 

In the meantime, the subject of the renewed Protest- 
ant persecutions in the South of France was, in May, 
1816, brought under the notice of the British House of 
Co mm ons by Sir Samuel Romilly — himself the de- 
scendant of a Languedoc Huguenot — in a powerful 

* See the Eev. Mark "Wilks's " History of the Persecutions endured 
by the Protestants of the South of France, 1814, 1815, 1816." 
Longmans, 1821. 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 279 

speech ; and although the motion was opposed by the 
Government, there can be little doubt that the discus- 
sion produced its due effect ; for the Bourbon Govern- 
ment, itself becoming alarmed, shortly after adopted 
vigorous measures, and the persecution was brought to 
an end. 

Since that time the Protestants of France have re- 
mained comparatively unmolested. Evidences have 
not been wanting to show that the persecuting spirit 
of the priest-party has not become extinct. While the 
author was in France in 1870, to visit the scenes of the 
wars of the Camisards, he observed from the papers 
that a French deputy had recently brought a case 
before the Assembly, in which a Catholic cure of Yille- 
d'Avray refused burial in the public cemetery to the 
corpse of a young English lady, because she was a 
Protestant, and remitted it to the place allotted for 
criminals and suicides. The body accordingly lay for 
eighteen days in the cabin of the gravedigger, until it 
could be transported to the cemetery of Sevres, where 
it was finally interred. 

But the people of France, as well as the government, 
have become too indifferent about religion generally, to 
persecute any one on its account. The nation is pro- 
bably even now suffering for its indifference, and the 
spectacle is a sad one. It is only the old, old story. 
The sins of the fathers are being visited on the children. 
Louis XIV. and the French nation of his time sowed 
the wind, and their descendants at the Revolution 
reaped the whirlwind. And who knows how much of 
the sufferings of France during the last few years may 
have been due to the ferocious intolerance, the abandon- 
ment to vicious pleasures, the thirst for dominion, and 
the hunger for " glory/' which above all others charac- 



280 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



terized the reign of that monarch who is in history 
miscalled " the Great ?" 

It will have been noted that the chief scenes of the 
revival of Protestantism described in the preceding 
pages occurred in Languedoc and the South of France, 
where the chief strength of the Huguenots always lay. 
The Camisard civil war which happened there, was not 
without its influence. The resolute spirit which it had 
evoked survived. The people were purified by suffer- 
ing, and though they did not conquer civil liberty, 
they continued to live strong, hardy, virtuous lives. 
When Protestantism was at length able to lift up its 
head after so long a period of persecution, it was found 
that, during its long submergence, it had lost neither 
in numbers, in moral or intellectual vigour, nor in 
industrial power. 

To this day the Protestants of Languedoc cherish the 
memory of their wanderings and worshippings in the 
Desert ; and they still occasionally hold their meetings 
in the old frequented places. Not far from Msmes are 
several of these ancient meeting-places of the persecuted, 
to which we have above referred. One of them is about 
two miles from the city, in the bed of a mountain 
torrent. The worshippers arranged themselves along 
the slopes of the narrow valley, the pastor preaching to 
to them from the grassy level in the hollow, while 
sentinels posted on the adjoining heights gave warning 
of the approach of the enemy. Another favourite place 
of meeting was the hollow of an ancient quarry called 
the Echo, from which the Romans had excavated much 
of the stone used in the building of the city. The con- 
gregation seated themselves around the craggy sides, 
the preacher's pulpit being placed in the narrow pass 
leading into the quarry. Notwithstanding all the 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 281 



vigilance of the sentinels, many persons of both sexes 
and various ages were often dragged from the Echo to 
imprisonment or death. Even after the persecutions 
had ceased, these meeting-places continued to be fre- 
quented by the Protestants of Msmes, and they were 
sometimes attended by five or six thousand persons, 
and on sacrament days by even double that number. 

Although the Protestants of Languedoc for the most 
part belong to the National Reformed Church, the in- 
dependent character of the people has led them to 
embrace Protestantism in other forms. Thus, the Evan- 
gelical Church is especially strong in the South, whilst 
the Evangelical Methodists number more congregations 
and worshippers in Languedoc than in all the rest of 
France. There are also in the Cevennes several con- 
gregations of Moravian Brethren. But perhaps one of 
the most curious and interesting issues of the Camisard 
war is the branch of the Society of Friends still exist- 
ing in Languedoc — the only representatives of that 
body in France, or indeed on the European continent. 

When the Protestant peasants of the Cevennes took 
up arms and determined to resist force by force, there 
were several influential men amongst them who kept 
back and refused to join them. They held that the 
Gospel they professed did not warrant them in taking 
up arms and fighting, even against the enemies who 
plundered and persecuted them. And when they saw 
the excesses into which the Camisards were led by the 
war of retaliation on which they had entered, they were 
the more confirmed in their view that the attitude 
which the rebels had assumed, was inconsistent with 
the Christian religion. 

After the war had ceased, these people continued to 
associate together, mamtaining a faithful testimony 



282 



THE HUGLEXOTS. 



against war, refusing to take oaths, and recognising 
silent worship, without dependence on human acquire- 
ments. They were not aware of the existence of a 
similar body in England and America until the period 
of the French Revolution, when some intercourse began 
to take place between them. 

In 1S07, Stephen Grellet, an American Friend, of 
French origin, visited Languedoc, and held many re- 
ligious meeting? in the towns and villages of the Lower 
Cevemies, which were not only attended by the Friends 
of Congenies, St. Hy polite, Ganges, St. Grilles, Fontanes, 
Vauvert, Quissac, and other places in the neighbour- 
hood of iXisrnes, but by the inhabitants at large, Roman 
Catholics as well as Protestants. At that time, as now, 
Congenies was regarded as the centre of the district 
principally inhabited by the Friends, and there they 
possess a large and commodious meeting-house, built 
for the purpose of worship. 

At the time of Stephen Grellet' 8 visit, he especially 
mentioned Louis Majolier as a a father and a pillar" 
amongst the little flock.* And it may not be unworthy 
to note that the daughter of the same Louis Majolier 
is at the present time one of the most acceptable female 
preachers of the Society of Friends in England. 

It may also be mentioned, in passing, that there still 
exist amongst the Yosges mountains the remnants of 
an ancient sect — the Anabaptists of Hunster — who 
hold views in many respects similar to those of the 
Friends. Amongst other things, they testify against 
war as unchristian, and refuse under any circumstances 
to carry arms. Rather than do so. they have at 
different times suffered imprisonment, persecution, and 
even death. The republic of 1793 respected their 
* "life of Stephen Grellet," third edition. London, 1870. 



END OF THE PERSECUTIONS. 283 



scruples, and did not require the Anabaptists to fight 
in the ranks, but employed them as pioneers and 
drivers, while Napoleon made them look after the 
wounded on the field of battle, and attend to the 
waggon train and ambulances.* And we understand 
that they continue to be similarly employed down to 
the present time. 

It forms no part of our subject to discuss the present 
state of the French Protestant Church. It has lost no 
part of its activity during the recent political changes. 
Although its clergy had for some time been supported 
by the State, they had not met in public synod until 
June, 1872, after an interval of more than two hundred 
years. During that period many things had become 
changed. Rationalism had invaded Evangelicalism. 
"Without a synod, or a settled faith, the Protestant 
churches were only so many separate congregations, 
often representing merely individual interests. In fact, 
the old Huguenot Church required reorganization; 
and great results are expected from the proceedings 
adopted at the recently held synod of the French Pro- 
testant Church, f 

"With respect to the French Catholic Church, its 
relative position to the Protestants remains the same as 
before. But it has no longer the power to persecute. 
The Gallican Church has been replaced by the Ultra- 
montane Church, but its impulses are no kindlier, 
though it has become " Infallible." 

The principal movement of the Catholic priests of 
late years has been to get up appearances of the Virgin. 

* Michel, " Les Anabaptistes des Vosges." Paris, 1862. 
f The best account of the proceedings at this synod is given in 
Blackwood 1 s Magazine for January, 1873. 



284 



THE HUGUENOTS. 



The Virgin appears, usually, to a child or two, and 
pilgrimages are immediately got up to the scene of 
her visit. By getting up religious movements of this 
kind, the priests and their followers believe that 
France will yet be helped towards the Revanche, which 
she is said to long for. 

But pilgrimages will not make men ; and if France 
wishes to be free, she will have to adopt some other 
methods. Bismarck will never be put down by pil- 
grimages. It was a sad saying of Father Hyacinthe at 
Geneva, that "France is bound to two influences — 
Superstition and Irreligion." 



A VISIT TO THE 

COUJSTTBY OF THE YAUDOIS. 



A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY OF THE 
VAUDOIS. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

T\ AUPHINY is one of the least visited of all the pro- 
U vinces of France. It occupies a remote corner of 
the empire, lying completely out of the track of ordinary 
tourists. No great road passes through it into Italy, 
the Piedmontese frontier of which it adjoins; and the 
annual streams of English and American travellers 
accordingly enter that kingdom by other routes. Even 
to Frenchmen, who travel little in their own country 
and still less in others, Dauphiny is very little known ; 
and M. Joanne, who has written an excellent Itinerary 
of the South of France, almost takes the credit of 
having discovered it. 

Yet Dauphiny is a province full of interest. Its 
scenery almost vies with that of Switzerland in gran- 
deur, beauty, and wildness. The great mountain masses 
of the Alps do not end in Savoy, but extend through 
the south-eastern parts of France, almost to the mouths 



288 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



of the Phone. Packed closer together than in most 
parts of Switzerland, the mountains of Dauphiny are 
furrowed by deep valleys, each with its rapid stream or 
torrent at bottom, in some places overhung by pre- 
cipitous rocks, in others hemmed in by green hills, 
over which are seen the distant snowy peaks and 
glaciers of the loftier mountain ranges. Of these, 
Mont Pelvoux — whose double pyramid can be seen 
from Lyons on a clear day, a hundred miles off — 
and the Aiguille du Midi, are among the larger 
masses, rising to a height little short of Mont Blanc 
itself. 

From the ramparts of Grenoble the panoramic view 
is of wonderful beauty and grandeur, extending along 
the valleys of the Isere and the Drac, and across that 
of the Romanche. The massive heads of the Grand 
Chartreuse mountains bound the prospect to the 
north ; and the summits of the snow-clad Dauphiny 
Alps on the south and east present a combination 
of bold valley and mountain scenery, the like of which 
is not to be seen in France, if in Europe. 

But it is not the scenery, or the geology, or the flora 
of the province, however marvellous these may be, that 
constitutes the chief interest for the traveller through 
these Dauphiny valleys, so much as the human en- 
durance, suffering, and faithfulness of the people who 
have lived in them in past times, and of which so many 
interesting remnants still survive. For Dauphiny forms 
a principal part of the country of the ancient Yaudois 
or Waldenses — literally, the people inhabiting the 
Vaux, or valleys — who for nearly seven hundred years 
bore the heavy brunt of Papal persecution, and are now, 
after all their sufferings, free to worship God according 
to the dictates of their conscience. 



EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES. 289 



The country of the Vaudois is not confined, as is 
generally supposed, to the valleys of Piedmont, but 
extends over the greater part of Dauphiny and Pro- 
vence. From the main ridge of the Cottian Alps, which 
divide France from Italy, great mountain spurs are 
thrown out, which run westward as well as eastward, 
and enclose narrow strips of pasturage, cultivable 
land, and green shelves on the mountain sides, where 
a poor, virtuous, and hard-working race have long 
contrived to earn a scanty subsistence, amidst trials 
and difficulties of no ordinary kind, — the greatest of 
which, strange to say, have arisen from the pure and 
simple character of the religion they professed. 

The tradition which exists among them is, that the 
early Christian missionaries, when travelling from Italy 
into Gaul by the Roman road passing over Mont 
Genevre, taught the Gospel in its primitive form to the 
people of the adjoining districts. It is even surmised 
that St. Paul journeyed from Rome into Spain by that 
route, and may himself have imparted to the people of 
the valleys their first Christian instruction. The 
Italian and Gallic provinces in that quarter were cer- 
tainly Christianized in the second century at the latest, 
and it is known that the early missionaries were in the 
habit of making frequent journeys from the provinces 
to Rome. Wherefore it is reasonable to suppose that 
the people of the valleys would receive occasional visits 
from the wayfaring teachers who travelled by the 
mountain passes in the immediate neighbourhood of 
their dwellings. 

As years rolled on, and the Church at Rome became 
rich and allied itself with the secular power, it gradually 
departed more and more from its primitive condition,* 

* The ancient Vaudois had a saying, known in other countries — 
U 



2Qo THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



until at length it was scarcely to be recognised from 
the Paganism which it had superseded. The heathen 
gods were replaced by canonised mortals ; Yenus and 
Cupid by the Virgin and Child ; Lares and Penates by 
images and crucifixes ; while incense, flowers, tapers, 
and showy dresses came to be regarded as essential 
parts of the ceremonial of the new religion as they had 
been of the old. Madonnas winked and bled again, as 
the statues of Juno and Pompey had done before ; and 
stones and relics worked miracles as in the time of the 
Augurs. 

Attempts were made by some of the early bishops to 
stem this tide of innovation. Thus, in the fourth 
century, Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and Philastrius, 
Bishop of Brescia, acknowledging no authority on 
earth as superior to that of the Bible, protested against 
the introduction of images in churches, which they held 
to be a return to Paganism. Four centuries later, 
Claude, Bishop of Turin, advanced like views, and 
opposed with energy the worship of images, which he 
regarded as absolute idolatry. In the meanwhile, the 
simple Yaudois, shut up in their almost inaccessible 
valleys, and knowing nothing of these innovations, con- 
tinued to adhere to their original primitive form of 
worship ; and it clearly appears, from a passage in the 
writings of St. Ambrose, that, in his time, the super- 
stitions which prevailed elsewhere had not at all ex- 
tended into the mountainous regions of his diocese. 

The Yaudois Church was never, in the ordinary 
sense of the word, a "Reformed" Church, simply 
because it had not become corrupted, and did not stand 

"Keligion brought forth wealth, and the daughter devoured the 
mother;" and another of like meaning, hut less known — "When 
the bishops' croziers became golden, the bishops themselves became 
wooden." 



THE VAUDOIS " UNREFORMED" 2 gi 



in need of "reformation." It was not the Vaudois 
who left the Church, but the Roman Church that left 
them in search of idols. Adhering to their primitive 
faith, they never recognised the paramount authority 
of the Pope ; they never worshipped images, nor used 
incense, nor observed Mass ; and when, in the course 
of time, these corruptions became known to them, and 
they found that the Western Church had ceased to be 
Catholic, and become merely Roman, they openly 
separated from it, as being no longer in conformity 
with the principles of the Gospel as inculcated in the 
Bible and delivered to them by their fathers. Their 
ancient manuscripts, still extant, attest to the purity of 
their doctrines. They are written, like the Nobla 
Leycon, in the Romance or Provencal — the earliest of 
the modern classical languages, the language of the 
troubadours — though now only spoken as a patois in 
Dauphiny, Piedmont, Sardinia, the north of Spain, and 
the Balearic Isles.* 

If the age counts for anything, the Yaudois are 
justified in their claim to be considered one of the 
oldest churches in Europe. Long before the conquest 
of England by the Normans, before the time of Wallace 
and Bruce in Scotland, before England had planted its 
foot in Ireland, the Yaudois Church existed. Their 
remoteness, their poverty, and their comparative un- 
importance as a people, for a long time protected them 
from interference ; and for centuries they remained 
unnoticed by Rome. But as the Western Church ex- 
tended its power, it became insatiable for uniformity. 
It would not tolerate the independence which charac- 
terized the early churches, but aimed at subjecting 
them to the exclusive authority of Rome. 

* Sismondi, " Litterature du Midi de 1' Europe," i. 159. 



2 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



The Yaudois, however, persisted in repudiating the 
doctrines and formularies of the Pope. When argu- 
ment failed, the Church called the secular arm to its 
aid, and then began a series of persecutions, extending 
over several centuries, which, for brutality and ferocity, 
are probably unexampled in history. To crush this 
unoffending but faithful people, Rome employed her 
most irrefragable arguments — the curses of Lucius and 
the horrible cruelties of Innocent — and the " Yicar of 
Christ" bathed the banner of the Cross in a carnage 
from which the wolves of Romulus and the eagles of 
Caesar would have turned with loathing. 

Long before the period of the Reformation, the 
Yaudois valleys were ravaged by fire and sword because 
of the alleged heresy of the people. Luther was not 
born until 1483 ; whereas nearly four centuries before, 
the Yaudois were stigmatized as heretics by Rome. 
As early as 1096, we find Pope Urban II. describing 
Yal Louise, one of the Dauphiny valleys — then 
called Yallis Gyrontana, from the torrent of Gryr, 
which flows through it — as " infested with heresy." 
In 1179, hot persecution raged all over Dauphiny, 
extending to the Albigeois of the South of France, 
as far as Lyons and Toulouse ; one of the first martyrs 
being Pierre Waldo, or Waldensis,* of Lyons, who 
was executed for heresy by the Archbishop of Lyons 
in 1180. 

Of one of the early persecutions, an ancient writer 
says : " In the year 1243, Pope Innocent II. ordered 
the Bishop of Metz rigorously to prosecute the Yaudois, 
especially because they read the sacred books in the 

* It has been surmised by some writers that the Waldenses derived 
their name from this martyr; but being known as "heretics" long 
before his time, it is more probable that they gave the name to him 
than that he did to them. 



THE EARLY PERSECUTIONS. 



vulgar tongue."* From time to time, new persecu- 
tions were ordered, and conducted with ever-increasing 
ferocity — the scourge, the brand, and the sword being 
employed by turns. In 1486, while Luther was still 
in his cradle, Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull of 
extermination against the Vaudois, summoning all 
true Catholics to the holy crusade, promising free par- 
don to all manner of criminals who should take part 
in it, and concluding with the promise of the remission 
of sins to every one who should slay a heretic. f The 
consequence was, the assemblage of an immense horde 
of brigands, who were let loose on the valleys of Dau- 
phiny and Piedmont, which they ravaged and pillaged, 
in company with eighteen thousand regular troops, 
jointly furnished by the French king and the Duke of 
Savoy. 

Sometimes the valleys were under the authority of 
the kings of France, sometimes under that of the dukes 
of Savoy, whose armies alternately overran them ; but 
change of masters and change of popes made little 
difference to the Vaudois. It sometimes, however, 
happened, that the persecution waxed hotter on one 
side of the Cottian Alps, while it temporarily relaxed 
on the other ; and on such occasions the French and 
Italian Vaudois were accustomed to cross the mountain 
passes, and take refuge in each others' valleys. But 
when, as in the above case, the kings, soldiers, and 
brigands, on both sides, simultaneously plied the brand 
and the sword, the times were very troublous indeed 
for these poor hunted people. They had then no 
alternative but to climb up the mountains into the 

' 

* Jean Leger, " Histoire Generale des Eglises Evangeliques des 
Vallees de Piedmont, ou Vaudoises." Leyde, 1669. Part ii. 330. 
f Leger, ii. 8-20. 



294 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



least accessible places, or hide themselves away in dens 
and caverns with their families, until their enemies had 
departed. But they were often tracked to their hiding- 
places by their persecutors, and suffocated, strangled, 
or shot — men, women, and children. Hence there is 
scarcely a hiding-place along the mountain- sides of 
Dauphiny but has some tradition connected with it re- 
lating to these dreadful times. In one, so many women 
and children were suffocated; in another, so many 
perished of cold and hunger ; in a third, so many were 
ruthlessly put to the sword. If these caves of Dauphiny 
had voices, what deeds of horror they could tell ! 

TThat is known as the Easter massacre of 1655 made 
an unusual sensation in Europe, but especially in 
England, principally through the attitude which Oliver 
Cromwell assumed in the matter. Persecution had 
followed persecution for nearly four hundred years, and 
still the Yaudois were neither converted nor extirpated. 
The dukes of Savoy during all that time pursued a 
uniform course of treachery and cruelty towards this 
portion of their subjects. Sometimes the Yaudois, 
pressed by their persecutors, turned upon them, and 
drove them ignominiously out of their valleys. Then 
the reigning dukes would refrain for a time ; and, 
probably needing their help in one or other of the wars 
in which they were constantly engaged, would promise 
them protection and privileges. But such promises 
were invariably broken ; and at some moment when the 
Yaudois were thrown off their guard by his pretended 
graciousness, the duke for the time being would 
suddenly pounce upon them and carry fire and sword 
through their valleys. 

Indeed, the dukes of Savoy seem to have been about 



CELEBRATION OF EASTER, 1655. 295 



the most wrong-headed line of despots that ever 
cursed a people by their rule. Their mania was 
soldiering, though they were oftener beaten than 
victorious. They were thrashed out of Dauphiny by 
France, thrashed out of Geneva by the citizens, thrashed 
out of the valleys by their own peasantry ; and still 
they went on raising armies, making war, and massa- 
cring their Yaudois subjects. Being devoted servants 
of the Pope, in 1655 they concurred with him in the 
establishment of a branch of the society De Propaganda 
Fide at Turin, which extended over the whole of Pied- 
mont, for the avowed purpose of extirpating the 
heretics. On Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy 
Week, the society commenced active proceedings. The 
army of Savoy advanced suddenly upon La Tour, and 
were let loose upon the people. A general massacre 
began, accompanied with shocking brutalities, and con- 
tinued for more than a week. In many hamlets not a 
cottage was left standing, and such of the people as had 
not been able to fly into the upper valleys were in- 
discriminately put to the sword. And thus was Easter 
celebrated. 

The noise of this dreadful deed rang through Europe, 
and excited a general feeling of horror, especially in 
England. Cromwell, then at the height of his power, 
offered the fugitive Yaudois an asylum in Ireland ; but 
the distance which lay between was too great, and the 
Yaudois asked him to help them in some other way. 
Forthwith, he addressed letters, written by his secre- 
tary, J ohn Milton,* to the principal European powers, 
calling upon them to join him in putting a stop to these 

* It was at this time that Milton wrote his noble sonnet, begin- 
ning— 

14 Avenge, 0 Lord, Thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold," &c. 



296 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



horrid barbarities committed upon an unoffending people. 
Cromwell did more. He -sent .the exiles £2,000 out of 
his own purse ; appointed a day of humiliation and a 
general collection all over England, by which some 
£38,000 were raised ; and dispatched Sir Samuel 
Borland as his plenipotentiary to expostulate in person 
with the Duke of Savoy. Moreover, a treaty was on 
the eve of being signed with France ; and Cromwell 
refused to complete it until Cardinal Mazarin had 
undertaken to assist him in getting right done to the 
people of the valleys. 

These energetic measures had their effect. The 
Yaudois who survived the massacre were permitted to 
return to their devastated homes, under the terms of 
the treaty known as the " Patents of Grace/' which 
was only observed, however, so long as Cromwell lived. 
At the Restoration, Charles II. seized the public fund 
collected for the relief of the Yaudois, and refused to 
remit the annuity arising from the interest thereon 
which Cromwell had assigned to them, declaring that 
he would not pay the debts of a usurper ! / 

After that time, the interest felt in the Yaudois was 
very much of a traditional character. Little was known 
as to their actual condition, or whether the descendants 
of the primitive Yaudois Church continued to exist or 
not. Though English travellers — amongst others, 
Addison, Smollett, and Sterne — passed through the 
country in the course of last century, they took no 
note of the people of the valleys. And this state of 
general ignorance as to the district continued down to 
within about the last fifty years, when quite a new 
interest was imparted to the subject through the 
labours and researches of the late Dr. Gilly, Prebendary 
of Dm ham. 



DR. GILLF. 



297 



It happened that that gentleman was present at a 
meeting of the Society for Promoting Christian Know- 
ledge, in the year 1820, when a very touching letter 
was read to the board, signed " Frederick Peyrani, 
minister of Pramol," requesting the assistance of the 
society in supplying books to the Yaudois churches of 
Piedmont, who were described as maintaining a very 
hard struggle with poverty and oppression. Dr. Grilly 
was greatly interested by the reading of this letter. 
Indeed, the subject of it so strongly arrested his atten- 
tion, that he says it " took complete possession of him." 
He proceeded to make search for information about the 
Vaudois, but could find very little that was definite or 
satisfactory respecting them. Then it was that he 
formed the determination of visiting the valleys and 
ascertaining the actual condition of the people in 
person. 

His visit was made in 1823, and in the course 
of the following year Dr. Gilly published the result 
in his " Narrative of an Excursion to the Mountains 
of Piedmont." The book excited much interest, not 
only in England, but in other countries ; and a move- 
ment was shortly after set on foot for the relief and 
assistance of the Yaudois. A committee was formed, 
and a fund was raised — to which the Emperor of Russia 
and the Kings of Prussia and Holland contributed — 
with the object, in the first place, of erecting a hospital 
for the sick and infirm Yaudois at La Tour, in the 
valley of Luzern. It turned out that the money raised 
was not only sufficient for this purpose, but also to 
provide schools and a college for the education of 
pastors, which were shortly after erected at the same 
place. 

In 1829, Dr. Gilly made a second visit to the Pied- 



298 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



niontese valleys, partly in order to ascertain how far 
the aid thus rendered to the poor Yaudois had proved 
effectual, and also to judge in what way certain further 
sums placed at his disposal might best be employed for 
their benefit.* It was in the course of his second visit 
that Dr. Gilly became aware of the fact that the 
Yaudois were not confined to the valleys of Piedmont, 
but that numerous traces of them were also to be found 
on the French side of the Alps, in Dauphiny and Pro- 
vence. He accordingly extended his journey across 
the Col de la Croix into France, and cursorily visited 
the old Yaudois district of Yal Fressiniere and Yal 
Queyras, of which an account will be given in the 
following chapters. It was while on this journey that 
Dr. Grilly became acquainted with the self-denying 
labours of the good Felix Neff among those poor out- 
lying Christians, with whose life and character he was 
so fascinated that he afterwards wrote and published 
the memoir of Xeff, so well known to English readers. 

Since that time occasional efforts have been made in 
aid of the French Yaudois, though those on the Italian 
side have heretofore commanded by far the larger share 
of interest. There have been several reasons for this. 
In the first place, the French valleys are much less 
accessible ; the roads through some of the most interest- 
ing valleys are so bad that they can only be travelled 
on foot, being scarcely practicable even for mules. 
There is no good hotel accommodation in the district, 
only cmberges, and these of an indifferent character. 
The people are also more scattered, and even poorer 
than they are on the Italian side of the Alps. Then 
the climate is much more severe, from the greater eleva- 

* Dr. Gilly's narrative of his second visit to the valleys was pub- 
lished in 1831, voider the title of " Waldenaian Researches." 



INFLUENCE OF PERSONAL EXAMPLE. 299 



tion of the sites of most of the Yaudois villages ; so 
that when pastors were induced to settle there, the 
cold, and sterility, and want of domestic accommoda- 
tion, soon drove them away. It was to the rigour of 
the climate that Felix Neff was eventually compelled 
to succumb. 

Yet much has been done of late years for the ameli- 
oration of the French Yaudois ; and among the most 
zealous workers in their behalf have been the Rev. Mr. 
Freemantle, rector of Claydon, Bucks, and Mr. Edward 
Milsom, the well-known merchant of Lyons. It was 
in the year 1851 that the Rev. Mr. Freemantle first 
visited the Yaudois of Dauphiny. His attention was 
drawn to the subject while editing the memoir of a 
young English clergyman, the Rev. Spencer Thornton, 
who had taken Felix JSeff for his model ; and he was 
thereby induced to visit the scene of Jeff's labours, 
and to institute a movement on behalf of the people of 
the French valleys, which has issued in the erection of 
schools, churches, and pastors' dwellings in several of 
the most destitute places. 

It is curious and interesting to trace the influence of 
personal example on human life and action. As the 
example of Oberlin in the Ban de la Roche inspired 
Felix Neff to action, so the life of Felix Neff inspired 
that of Spencer Thornton, and eventually led Mr. 
Freemantle to enter upon the work of extending 
evangelization among the Yaudois. In like manner, a 
young French pastor, M. Bost, also influenced by the 
life and labours of JSTeff, visited the valleys some years 
since, and wrote a book on the subject, the perusal of 
which induced Mr. Milsom to lend a hand to the work 
which the young Genevese missionary had begun. 
And thus good example goes on ever propagating 



3 oo THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



itself; and though the tombstone may record " Hie 
jacet" over the crumbling dust of the departed, his 
spirit still lives and works through other minds — 
stimulates them to action, and inspires them with 
hope — "allures to brighter worlds, and leads the 
way." 

A few words as to the origin of these fragmentary 
papers. In chalking out a summer holiday trip, one 
likes to get quite away from the ordinary round of 
daily life and business. Half the benefits of such a trip 
consists in getting out of the old ruts, and breathing 
fresh air amidst new surroundings. But this is very 
difficult if you follow the ordinary tourist's track. 
London goes with you and elbows you on your way, 
accompanied by swarms of commissionaires, guides, 
and beggars. You encounter London people on the 
Righi, on the Wengern Alp, and especially at Chamouni. 
Think of being asked, as I once was on entering the 
Pavilion at Montanvert, after crossing the Mer de 
Glace from the Mauvais Pas, " Pray, can you tell me 
what was the price of Brighton stock when you left 
town ?" 

There is no risk of such rencontres in Dauphiny, 
whose valleys remain in almost as primitive a state as 
they were hundreds of years ago. Accordingly, when 
my friend Mr. Milsom, above mentioned, invited me to 
accompany him in one of his periodical visits to the 
country of the Vaudois, I embraced the opportunity 
with pleasure. I was cautioned beforehand as to the 
inferior accommodation provided for travellers through 
the district. Tourists being unknown there, the route 
is not padded and cushioned as it is on all the beaten 
continental rounds. English is not spoken ; Bass's 



TOUR IN FRANCE. 



301 



pale ale lias not yet penetrated into Dauphiny ; nor do 
you encounter London tourists carrying their tin baths 
about with them as you do in Switzerland. Only an 
occasional negotiant comes up from Gap or Grenoble, 
seeking orders in the villages, for whom the ordinary 
auberges suffice. 

Where the roads are practicable, an old-fashioned 
diligence may occasionally be seen plodding along, 
freighted with villagers bound for some local market ; 
but the roads are, for the most part, as silent as the 
desert. 

Such being the case, the traveller in the valleys must 
be prepared to " rough it" a little. I was directed to 
bring with me only a light knapsack, a pair of stout 
hob-nailed shoes, a large stock of patience, and a small 
parcel of insect powder. The knapsack and the shoes 
I found exceedingly useful, indeed indispensable ; but 
I had very little occasion to draw upon either my 
stock of patience or insect powder. The French are 
a tidy people, and though their beds, stuffed with 
maize chaff, may be hard, they are tolerably clean. 
The food provided in the auberges is doubtless very 
different from what one is accustomed to at home ; but 
with the help of cheerfulness and a good digestion 
that difficulty too may be got over. 

Indeed, among the things that most strikes a tra- 
veller through France, as characteristic of the people, 
is the skill with which persons of even the poorest 
classes prepare and serve up food. The French women 
are careful economists and excellent cooks. Nothing is 
wasted. The pot au feu is always kept simmering on 
the hob, and, with the help of a hunch of bread, a good 
meal may at any time be made from it. Even in the 
humblest auberge, in the least frequented district, the 



502 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



dinner served up is of a quality such as can very rarely 
be had in any English public-house, or even in most 
of our country inns. Cooking seems to be one of the 
lost arts of England, if indeed it ever possessed it ; 
and our people are in the habit, through want of 
knowledge, of probably toasting more food than would 
sustain many another nation. But in the great system 
of National Education that is to be, no one dreams of 
including as a branch of it skill in the preparation and 
economy in the use of human food. 

There is another thing that the traveller through 
France may always depend upon, and that is civility. 
The politeness of even the French poor to each other is 
charming. They respect themselves, and they respect 
each other. I have seen in France what I have not 
yet seen in England — young working men walking out 
their aged mothers arm in arm in the evening, to hear 
the band play in the "Place," or to take a turn on the 
public promenade. But the French are equally polite 
to strangers. A stranger lady may travel all through 
the rural districts of France, and never encounter a rude 
look ; a stranger gentleman, and never receive a rude 
word. That the French are a self-respecting people 
is also evinced by the fact that they are a sober 
people. Drunkenness is scarcely known in France; 
and one may travel all through it and never witness 
the degrading sight of a drunken man. 

The French are also honest and thrifty, and exceed- 
ingly hard-working. The industry of the people is 
unceasing. Indeed it is excessive ; for they work 
Sunday and Saturday. Sunday has long ceased to be 
a Sabbath in France. There is no day of rest there. 
Before the Revolution, the saints' days which the 
Church ordered to be observed so encroached upon the 



FRENCH SUNDAY WORK. 



3°3 



hours required for labour, that in course of time Sunday 
became an ordinary working day. And when the 
Revolution abolished saints' days and Sabbath days 
alike, Sunday work became an established practice. 

What the so-called friends of the working classes are 
aiming at in England, has already been effected in 
France. The public museums and picture-galleries are 
open on Sunday. But you look for the working people 
there in vain. They are at work in the factories, whose 
chimneys are smoking as usual ; or building houses, or 
working in the fields, or they are engaged in the various 
departments of labour. The government works all go 
on as usual on Sundays. The railway trains run pre- 
cisely as on week days. In short, the Sunday is 
secularised, or regarded but as a partial holiday.* 

As you pass through the country on Sundays, as 
on week-days, you see the people toiling in the fields. 
And as dusk draws on, the dark figures may be. seen 

* I find the following under the signature of "An Operative 
Bricklayer," in the Times of the 30th July, 1867: "I found there 
were a great number of men in Paris that worked on the buildings 
who were not residents of the city. The bricklayers are called 
limousins ; they come from the old province Le Limousin, where they 
keep their home, and many of them are landowners. They work in 
Paris in the summer time ; they come up in large numbers, hire a 
place in Paris, and live together, and by so doing they live cheap. 
In the winter time, when they cannot work on the buildings, they go 
back home again and take their savings, and stop there until the spring, 
which is far better than it is in London ; when the men cannot work 
they are hanging about the streets. It was with regret that I saw so 
many working on the Sunday desecrating the Sabbath. I inquired 
why they worked on Sunday ; they told me it was to make up the 
time they lose through wet and other causes. I saw some working 
with only their trousers and shoes on, with a belt round their waist to 
keep their trousers up. Their naked back was exposed to the sun, 
and was as brown as if it had been dyed, and shone as if it had been 
varnished. I asked if they had any hard-working hearty old men. 
They answered me " No ; the men were completely worn out by the 
time they reached forty years." That was a clear proof that they 
work against the laws of nature. I thought to myself — Glory be to 
you, 0 Englishmen, you know the Fourth Commandment ; you know 
the value of the seventh day, the day of rest !" 



3o 4 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



moving about so long as there is light to see by. It is 
the peasants working the land, and it is their own. 
Such is the "magical influence of property/' said 
Arthur Young, when he observed the same thing. 

It is to be feared, however, that the French peasantry 
are afflicted with the disease which Sir Walter Scott 
called the "earth-hunger;" and there is danger of the 
gravel getting into their souls. Anyhow, their con- 
tinuous devotion to bodily labour, without a seventh 
day's rest, cannot fail to exercise a deteriorating effect 
upon their physical as well as their moral condition ; 
and this we believe it is which gives to the men, and 
especially to the women of the country, the look of a 
prematurely old and overworked race. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE VALLEY OF THE ROMANCHE — BRIANCON. 

THE route from Grenoble to the frontier fortress of 
Briancon lies for the most part up the valley of 
the Romanche, which presents a variety of wild and 
beautiful scenery. In summer the river is confined 
within comparatively narrow limits ; but in autumn and 
spring it is often a furious torrent, flooding the low- 
lying lands, and forcing for itself new channels. The 
mountain heights which bound it, being composed for 
the most part of schist, mica slate, and talcose slate, 
large masses become detached in winter — split off by 
the freezing of the water behind them — when they 
descend, on the coming of thaw, in terrible avalanches 
of stone and mud. Sometimes the masses are such as 
to dam up the river and form temporary lakes, until 
the accumulation of force behind bursts the barrier, 
and a furious flood rushes down the valley. By one 
of such floods, which occurred a few centuries since, 
through the bursting of the lake of St. Laurent in the 
valley of the Romanche, a large part of Grenoble 
was swept away, and many of the inhabitants were 
drowned. 

The valley of the Romanche is no sooner entered, a 
few miles above Grenoble, than the mountains begin 

x 



3 o6 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



to close, the scenery becomes wilder, and the fury of 
the torrent is evinced by the masses of debris strewed 
along its bed. Shortly after passing the picturesque 
defile called L'Etroit, where the river rushes through 
a deep cleft in the rocks, the valley opens out again, 
and we shortly come in sight of the ancient town 
of Yizille — the most prominent building in which is 
the chateau of the famous Due de Lesdiguieres, gover- 
nor of the province in the reign of Henry IY., and 
Constable of France in that of Louis XIII. 

Wherever you go in Dauphiny, you come upon the 
footmarks of this great soldier. At Grenoble there is 
the Constable's palace, now the Prefecture ; and the 
beautiful grounds adjoining it, laid out by himself, are 
now the public gardens of the town. Between Grenoble 
and Yizille there is the old road constructed by him, 
still known as " Le chemin du Connetable." At St. 
Bonnet, in the valley of the Drac, formerly an almost 
exclusively Protestant town, known as " the Geneva of 
the High Alps," you are shown the house in which 
the Constable was born ; and a little lower down the 
same valley, in the commune of Glaizil, on a hill over- 
looking the Drac, stand the ruins of the family castle, 
where the Constable was buried. The people of the 
commune were in the practice of carrying away the 
bones from the family vault, believing them to possess 
some virtue as relics, until the prefect of the High 
Alps ordered it to be walled up to prevent the entire 
removal of the skeletons. 

In the early part of his career, Lesdiguieres was one 
of the most trusted chiefs of Henry of Navarre, often 
leading his Huguenot soldiers to victory ; capturing 
town after town, and eventually securing possession of 



DUC EE LESDIG UTERES. 



307 



the entire province of Dauphiny, of which Henry ap- 
pointed him governor. In that capacity he carried 
out many important public works — made roads, built 
bridges, erected fourteen fortresses, and enlarged and 
beautified his palace at Grenoble and his chateau at 
Vizille. He enjoyed great popularity during his life, 
and was known throughout his province as " King of 
the Mountains." But he did not continue staunch 
either to his party or his faith. As in the case of many 
of the aristocratic leaders of those times, Lesdiguieres' 
religion was only skin deep. It was but a party 
emblem — a flag to fight under, not a faith to live by. 
So, when ambition tempted him, and the Constable's 
baton dangled before his eyes, it cost the old soldier 
but little compunction to abandon the cause which he 
had so brilliantly served in his youth. To secure the 
prize which he so coveted, he made public abjuration of 
his faith in the church of St. Andrew's at Grenoble in 
1622, in the presence of the Marquis de Crequi, the 
minister of Louis XIII., who, immediately after Lesdi- 
guieres' first mass, presented him with the Constable's 
baton. 

But the Lesdiguieres family has long since passed 
away, and left no traces. At the Eevolution, the 
Constable's tomb was burst open, and his coffin torn up. 
His monument was afterwards removed to Gap, which, 
when a Huguenot, he had stormed and ravaged. His 
chateau at Yizille passed through different hands, until 
in 1775 it came into the possession of the Perier family, 
to which the celebrated Casimir Perier belonged. The 
great Gothic hall of the chateau has witnessed many 
strange scenes. In 1623, shortly after his investment 
as Constable, Lesdiguieres entertained Louis XIII. and 
his court there, while on his journey into Italy, in the 



3 o8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



course of which he so grievously ravaged the Vaudois 
villages. In 1788, the Estates of Dauphiny met there, 
and prepared the first bold remonstrance against 
aristocratic privileges, and in favour of popular repre- 
sentation, which, in a measure, proved the commence- 
ment of the great Revolution. And there too, in 1822, 
Felix INeff preached to large congregations, who were 
so anxious and attentive that he always after spoke of 
the place as his " dear Yizille ; " and now, to wind up 
the vicissitudes of the great hall, it is used as a place 
for the printing of Bandana handkerchiefs ! 

When Neff made his flying visits to Yizille, he was 
temporarily stationed at Mens, which was the scene of 
his first labours in Dauphiny. The place lies not far 
from Yizille, away among the mountains towards the 
south. During the wars of religion, and more especially 
after the Revocation of the Edict of Mantes, Mens 
became a place of refuge for the Protestants, who still 
form about one-half of its population. Although, 
during the long dark period of religious persecution 
which followed the Revocation, the Protestants of Mens 
and the neighbouring villages did not dare to show 
themselves, and worshipped, if at all, only in their 
dwellings, in secret, or in " the Desert," no sooner did 
the Revolution set them at liberty than they formed 
themselves again into churches, and appointed pastors ; 
and it was to serve them temporarily in that capacity 
that Felix Neff first went amongst them, and laboured 
there and at Yizille with such good effect. 

Not far from Mens is a place which has made much 
more noise in the world — no other than La Salette, the 
scene of the latest Roman " miracle." La Salette is 



LA SALETTE. 



3°9 



one of the side-valleys of the large valley of the Drac, 
which joins the Romanche a few miles above Grenoble. 
There is no village of La Salette, but a commune, 
which is somewhat appropriately called La Salette- 
Fallavaux, the latter word being from fallax vallis, or 
" the lying valley." 

About twenty- seven years ago, on the 19th of 
September, 1846, two children belonging to the hamlet 
of Abladens — the one a girl of fourteen, the other a boy 
of twelve years old — came down from the lofty pasturage 
of Mont Grargas, where they had been herding cattle, 
and told the following strange story, They had seen 
the Virgin Mary descend from heaven with a crucifix 
suspended from her neck by a gold chain, and a ham- 
mer and pincers suspended from the chain, but without 
any visible support. The figure sat down upon a large 
stone, and wept so piteously as shortly to fill a large 
pool with her tears. 

When the story was noised abroad, people came 
from all quarters, and went up the mountain to see 
where the Virgin had sat. The stone was soon broken 
off in chips and carried away as relics, but the fountain 
filled with the tears is still there, tasting very much 
like ordinary spring water. 

Two priests of Grenoble, disgusted at what they 
believed to be an imposition, accused a young person 
of the neighbourhood, one Mdlle. de Lamerliere, 
as being the real author of the pretended miracle, on 
which she commenced an action against them for 
defamation of character. She brought the celebrated 
advocate Jules Favre from Paris to plead her cause, 
but the verdict was given in favour of the two priests. 
The " miracle " was an imposture ! 

Notwithstanding this circumstance, the miracle came 



;io THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



to be generally believed in the neighbourhood. The 
number of persons who resorted to the place with money 
in their pockets steadily increased. The question was 
then taken up by the local priests, who vouched for 
the authenticity of the miracle seen by the two children. 
The miracle was next accepted by Koine.* A church 
was built on the spot by means of the contributions of 
the visitors — L'Eglise de la Salette — and thither 
pilgrims annually resort in great numbers, the more 
devout climbing the hill, from station to station, on 
their knees. As many as four thousand persons of both 
sexes, and of various ages, have been known to climb 
the hill in one day — on the anniversary of the appear- 
ance of the apparition — notwithstanding the extreme 
steepness and difficulties of the ascent. 

As a pendant to this story, another may be given of 
an entirely different character, relating to the inhabit- 
ants of another commune in the same valley, about 
midway between La Salette and Grenoble. In 1860, 
while the discussion about the miracle at La Salette was 
still in progress, the inhabitants of Xotre-Dame-de- 

* An authorised account was prepared by Cardinal Wiseman for 
English readers, entitled " Manual of the Association of our Lady of 
Reconciliation of La Salette,'' and published as a tract by Burns, 17, 
Portman Street, in 1S53. Since I passed through the country in 
1869, the Germans have invaded France, the surrender has occurred 
at Sedan, the Commune has been defeated at Paris, but Our Lady 
of La Salette is greater than ever. A temple of enormous dimensions 
has risen in her honour ; the pilgrims number over 100,000 yearly, 
and the sale of the water from the Holy Well, said to have sprung 
from the Virgin's tears, realises more than £12,000. Since the 
success of La Salette, the Virgin has been making repeated appear- 
ances in France. Her last appearance was in a part of Alsacfi, which 
is strictly Catholic. The Virgin appeared, as usual, to a boy of the 
mature age of six, " dressed in black, floating in the air, her hands 
bound with chains," — a pretty strong religio-political hint. When 
a party of the 5th Bavarian Cavalry was posted in Bettweiler, the 
Virgin ceased to make her appearance. 



PROTESTANTISM A T COMIERS. 3 1 1 



Comiers, dissatisfied with, the conduct of their cure, 
invited M. Fermaud, pastor of the Protestant church at 
Grenoble, to come over and preach to them, as they 
were desirous of embracing Protestantism. The pastor, 
supposing that they were influenced by merely tempo- 
rary irritation against their cure, cautioned the deputa- 
tion that waited upon him as to the gravity of their 
decision in such a matter, and asked them to reflect 
further upon it. 

For several years M. Fermaud continued to maintain 
the same attitude, until, in 1865, a formal petition 
was delivered to him by the mayor of the place, signed 
by forty-three heads of families, and by nine out of the 
ten members of the council of the commune, urging 
him to send them over a minister of the evangelical 
religion. Even then lie hesitated, and recommended 
the memorialists to appeal to the bishop of the diocese 
for redress of the wrongs of which he knew they com- 
plained, but in vain, until at length, in the beginning of 
1868, with the sanction of the consistory of Grenoble, 
a minister was sent over to Comiers to perform the first 
acts of Protestant worship, including baptism and 
marriage ; and it was not until October in the same 
year that Pastor Fermaud himself went thither to 
administer the sacrament to the new church. 

The service was conducted in the public hall of the 
commune, and was attended by a large number of per- 
sons belonging to the town and neighbourhood. The 
local clergy tried in vain to check the movement. 
Quite recently, when the cure entered one of the schools 
to inscribe the names of the children who were to 
attend their first mass, out of fifteen of the proper age 
eleven answered to the interrogatory of the priest, 
"Monsieur, nous sommes Protestantes." The move- 



3 i2 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUBOIS. 



merit lias also extended into the neighbouring' com- 
munes, helped by the zeal of the new converts, one of 
whom is known in the neighbourhood as "Pere la 
Bible/ ' and it is possible that before long it may even 
extend to La Salette itself. 

The route from Vizille up the valley of the Romanche 
continues hemmed in by rugged mountains, in some 
places almost overhanging the river. At Sechilienne 
it opens out sufficiently to afford space -for a terraced 
garden, amidst which stands a handsome chateau, 
flanked by two massive towers, commanding a beautiful 
prospect down the valley. The abundant water which 
rushes down from the mountain behind is partly col- 
lected in a reservoir, and employed to feed a jet d'eau 
which rises in a lofty column under the castle windows. 
Further up, the valley again contracts, until the Gorge 
de Loiret is passed. The road then crosses to the left 
bank, and used to be continued along it, but the terrible 
torrent of 1868 washed it away for miles, and it 
has not yet been reconstructed. Temporary bridges 
enable the route to be pursued by the old road on the 
right bank, and after passing through several hamlets 
of little interest, we arrive at length at the cultivated 
plain hemmed in by lofty mountains, in the midst of 
which Bourg d'Oisans lies seated. 

This little plain was formerly occupied by the lake 
of St. Laurent, formed by the barrier of rocks and 
debris which had tumbled down from the flank of the 
Petite Youdene, a precipitous mountain escarpment 
overhanging the river. At this place, the strata are 
laid completely bare, and may be read like a book. 
For some distance along the valley they exhibit the 
most extraordinary contortions and dislocations, im- 



BOURG D'OISANS. 



pressing the mind with the enormous natural forces 
that must have been at work to occasion such tremen- 
dous upheavings and disruptions. Elie de Beaumont, 
the French geologist, who has carefully examined the 
district, says that at the Montague d'Oisans he found 
the granite in some places resting upon the limestone, 
cutting through the Calcareous beds, rising like a wall 
and lapping over them. 

On arriving at Bourg d'Oisans, we put up at the 
Hotel de Milan close by the bridge ; but though digni- 
fied with the name of hotel, it is only a common road- 
side inn. Still, it is tolerably clean, and in summer the 
want of carpets is not missed. The people were civil 
and attentive, their bread wholesome, their pottage and 
bouilli good — being such fare as the people of the 
locality contrive to live and thrive upon. The accom- 
modation of the place is, indeed, quite equal to the 
demand ; for very few travellers accustomed to a better 
style of living pass that way. When the landlady was 
asked if many tourists had passed this year, she replied, 
" Tourists ! We rarely see such travellers here. You 
are the first this season, and perhaps you may be the 
last." 

Yet these valleys are well worthy of a visit, and an 
influx of tourists would doubtless have the same effect 
that it has already had in Switzerland and elsewhere, 
of greatly improving the hotel accommodation through- 
out the district. There are many domestic arrange- 
ments, costing very little money, but greatly ministering 
to cleanliness and comfort, which might very readily be 
provided. But the people themselves are indifferent to 
them, and they need the requisite stimulus of " pressure 
from without." One of the most prominent defects — 
common to all the inns of Bauphiny — having been 



3 i4 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



brought under the notice of the landlady, she replied, 
" C'est vrai, monsieur ; mais — il laisse quelque chose a 
desirer ! " How neatly eyaded ! The very defect was 
itself an advantage ! "What would life be — what would 
hotels be — if there were not " something left to be 
desired ! " 

The view from the inn at the bridge is really charm- 
ing. The little river which runs down the valley, and 
becomes lost in the distance, is finally fringed with trees 
— alder, birch, and chestnut. Eidge upon ridge of 
mountain rises up behind on the right hand and the 
left, the lower clothed with patches of green larch, and 
the upper with dark pine. Aboye all are ranges of 
jagged and grey rocks, shooting up in many places into 
lofty peaks. The setting sun, shining across the face of 
the mountain opposite, brings out the prominent masses 
in bold relief, while the yalley beneath hovers between 
light and shadow, changing almost from one second to 
another as the sua goes down. In the cool of the 
evening, we walked through the fields across the plain, 
to see the torrent, visible from the village, which rushes 
from the rocky gorge on the mountain- side to join its 
waters to the Eomanche. All along the valleys, water 
abounds — sometimes bounding from the heights, in 
jets, in rivulets, in masses, leaping from rock to rock, 
and reaching the ground only in white clouds of spray, 
or, as in the case of the little river which flows along- 
side the inn at the bridge, bursting directly from the 
ground in a continuous spring ; these waterfalls, and 
streams, and springs being fed all the year through by 
the immense glaciers that nil the hollows of the moun- 
tains on either side the valley. 

Though the scenery of Bourg d'Oisans is not, as its 
eulogists allege, equal to that of Switzerland, it will at 



GORGE OF FRENEY. 



3i5 



least stand a comparison with that of Savoy. Its moun- 
tains are more precipitous and abrupt, its peaks more 
jagged, and its aspect more savage and wild. The 
scenery of Mont Pelvoux, which is best approached 
from Bourg d'Oisans, is especially grand and sublime, 
though of a wild and desolate character. The road 
from Bourg d'Oisans to Briancon also presents some 
magnificent scenery ; and there is one part of it that is 
not perhaps surpassed even by the famous Yia Mala 
leading up to the Spliigen. It is about three miles 
above Bourg d'Oisans, from which we started early 
next morning. There the road leaves the plain and 
enters the wild gorge of Freney, climbing by a steep 
road up the Bampe des Commieres. The view from 
the height when gained is really superb, commanding 
an extremely bold and picturesque valley, hemmed in 
by mountains. The ledges on the hill-sides spread out 
in some places so as to afford sufficient breadths for 
cultivation ; occasional hamlets appear amidst the fields 
and pine-woods ; and far up, between you and the sky, 
an occasional church spire peeps up, indicating still 
loftier settlements, though how the people contrive to 
climb up to those heights is a wonder to the spectator 
who views them from below. 

The route follows the profile of the mountain, 
winding in and out along its rugged face, scarped and 
blasted so as to form the road. At one place it passes 
along a gallery about six hundred feet in length, cut 
through a precipitous rock overhanging the river, which 
dashes, roaring and foaming, more than a thousand feet 
below, through the rocky abyss of the Gorge de l'ln- 
fernet. Perhaps there is nothing to be seen in Switzer- 
land finer of its kind than the succession of charming 
landscapes which meet the eye in descending this pass. 



* V r 

316 Zffff COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 

Beyond the village of Freney we enter another defile, 
So narrow that in places there is room only for the 
river and the road ; and in winter the river sometimes 
plays sad havoc with the engineer's constructions. 
Above this gorge, the Romanche is joined by the 
Ferrand, an impetuous torrent which comes down from 
the glaciers of the Grand Pousses. Immediately over 
their point of confluence, seated on a lofty promontory, 
is the village of Mizoen — a place which, because of the 
outlook it commands, as well as because of its natural 
strength, was one of the places in which the Yaudois 
were accustomed to take refuge in the times of the per- 
secutions. Further on, we pass through another gallery 
in the rock, then across the little green valley of Cham- 
bon to Le Dauphin, after which the scenery becomes 
wilder, the valley — here called the Combe de Malaval 
(the "Cursed Valley") — rocky and sterile, the only 
feature to enliven it being the Cascade de la Pisse, 
which falls from a height of over six hundred feet, first 
in one jet, then becomes split by a projecting rock into 
two, and finally reaches the ground in a shower of spray. 
Shortly after we pass another cascade, that of the 
Biftort, which also joins the Romanche, and marks the 
boundary between the department of the Isere and that 
of the Hautes Alpes, which we now enter. 

More waterfalls — the Sau de la Pucelle, which falls 
from a height of some two hundred and fifty feet, re- 
sembling the Staubbach — besides rivulets without 
number, running down the mountain-sides like silver 
threads ; until we arrive at La Grave, a village about 
five thousand feet above the sea-level, directly opposite 
the grand glaciers of Tabuchet, Pacave, and Vallon, 
which almost overhang the Pomanche, descending from 
the steep slopes of the gigantic Aiguille du Midi, the 



COL EE LAUTERET. 



3*7 



highest mountain in the French Alps, — being over 
13,200 feet above the level of the sea. 

After resting some two hours at La Grave, we pro- 
ceeded by the two tunnels under the hamlet ot Yente- 
long — one of which is 650 and the other 1,800 feet 
long — to the village of Villard d'Arene, which, though 
some five thousand feet above the level of the sea, 
is so surrounded by lofty mountains that for months 
together the sun never shines on it. From thence 
a gradual ascent leads up to the summit of the Col 
de Lauteret, which divides the valley of the Ro- 
manche from that of the Guisanne. The pastures 
along the mountain-side are of the richest verdure ; 
and so many rare and beautiful plants are found 
growing there that M. Rousillon has described it 
as a "very botanical Eden/' Here Jean Jacques Rous- 
seau delighted to herborize, and here the celebrated 
botanist Mathonnet, originally a customs officer, born 
at the haggard village of Villard d'Arene, which we 
have just passed, cultivated his taste for natural history, 
and laid the foundations of his European reputation. 
The variety of temperature which exists along the 
mountain-side, from the bottom to the summit, its ex- 
posure to the full rays of the sun in some places, and 
its sheltered aspect in others, facilitate the growth of 
an extraordinary variety of beautiful plants and wild 
flowers. In the low grounds meridianal plants flourish ; 
on the middle slopes those of genial climates ; while 
on the summit are found specimens of the flora of Lap- 
land and Greenland. Thus almost every variety of 
flowers is represented in this brilliant natural garden — 
orchids, cruciferae, leguminae, rosaceaa, caryophyllaa, 
lilies of various kinds, saxifrages, anemones, ranun- 
culuses, swertia, primula, and varieties of the sedum, 



3 i 8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



some of which are peculiar to this mountain, and 
are elsewhere unknown. 

After passing the Hospice near the summit of the 
Col, the valley of the Gfuisanne comes in sight, showing 
a line of bare and rugged mountains on the right hand 
and on the left, with a narrow strip of land in the 
bottom, in many parts strewn with stones carried down 
by the avalanches from the cliffs above. Shortly we 
come in sight of the distant ramparts of Briancon, ap- 
parently closing in the valley, the snow- clad peak of 
Monte Yiso rising in the distance. Halfway between 
the Col and Briancon we pass through the village of 
Monestier, where, being a saint's day, the bulk of the 
population are in the street, holding festival. The 
place was originally a Roman station, and the people 
still give indications of their origin, being extremely 
swarthy, black-haired, and large-eyed, evidently much 
more Italian than French. 

But though the villagers of Monestier were taking 
holiday, no one can reproach them with idleness. Never 
was there a more hard-working people than the 
peasantry of these valleys. Every little patch of ground 
that the plough or spade can be got into is turned to 
account. The piles of stone and rock collected by the 
sides of the fields testify to the industry of the people 
in clearing the soil for culture. And their farming is 
carried on in the face of difficulties and discouragements 
of no ordinary character, for sometimes the soil of many 
of the little farms will be swept away in a night by an 
avalanche of snow in winter or of stones in spring. 
The wrecks of fields are visible all along the valley, 
especially at its upper part. Lower down it widens, 
and affords greater room for culture ; the sides of the 
mountains become better wooded ; and, as we approach 



BRIANCON. 
< 



3 l 9 



the fortress of Briancon, with its battlements seem- 
ingly piled one over the other up the mountain-sides, 
the landscape becomes exceedingly bold and picturesque. 

When passing the village of Villeneuve la Salle, a 
few miles from Briancon, we were pointed to a spot on 
the opposite mountain-side, over the pathway leading to 
the Col de TEchuada, where a cavern was discovered a 
few years since, which, upon examination, was found to 
contain a considerable quantity of human bones. It was 
one of the caves in which the hunted Yaudois were 
accustomed to take refuge during the persecutions ; 
and it continued to be called by the peasantry " La 
Roche armee " — the name being thus perpetuated, 
though the circumstances in which it originated had 
been forgotten. 

The fortress of Briancon, which we entered by a 
narrow winding roadway round the western rampart, is 
the frontier fortress which guards the pass from Italy 
into France by the road over Mont Grenevre. It must 
always have been a strong place by nature, overlooking 
as it does the valley of the Durance on the one hand, 
and the mountain road from Italy on the other, while 
the river Clairee, running in a deep defile, cuts it 
off from the high ground to the south and east. The 
highest part of the town is the citadel, or Fort du 
Chateau, built upon a peak of rock on the site of the 
ancient castle. It was doubtless the nucleus round 
which the early town became clustered, until it filled 
the lower plateau to the verge of the walls and battle- 
ments. There being no room for the town to expand, 
the houses are closely packed together and squeezed up, 
as it were, so as to occupy the smallest possible space. 
The streets are narrow, dark, gloomy, and steep, being 
altogether impassable for carriages. The liveliest sight 



3 2o THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



in the place is a stream of pure water, that rushes down 
an open conduit in the middle of the principal street, 
which is exceedingly steep and narrow. The town is 
sacrificed to the fortifications, which dominate every- 
where. With the increasing range and power of 
cannon, they have been extended in all directions, until 
they occupy the flanks of the adjoining mountains and 
many of their summits, so that the original castle now 
forms but a comparatively insignificant part of the 
fortress. The most important part of the population is 
the soldiery — the red-trousered missionaries of " civili- 
sation," according to the gospel of Louis Napoleon, 
published a short time before our visit- 
Other missionaries, are, however, at work in the town 
and neighbourhood; and both at Briancon and Yil- 
leneuve Protestant stations have been recently estab- 
lished, under the auspices of the Protestant Society of 
Lyons. In former times, the population of Briancon 
included a large number of Protestants. In the year 
1575, three years after the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
they were so numerous and wealthy as to be able to 
build a handsome temple, almost alongside the cathedral, 
and it still stands there in the street called Rue du 
Temple, with the motto over the entrance, in old 
French, " Cerches et vos troveres." But at the Revo- 
cation of the Edict of xVantes, the temple was seized 
by the King and converted into a granary, and the 
Protestants of the place were either executed, banished, 
or forced to conform to the Papal religion. Since then 
the voice of Protestantism has been mute in Briancon 
until within the last few years, during which a mission 
has been in operation. Some of the leading persons in 
the town have embraced the Reform faith, amongst 
others the professor of literature in the public college ; 



PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE. 



but he had no sooner acknowledged to the authorities 
the fact of his conversion, than he was dismissed from 
his office, though he has since been appointed to a more 
important profession at Nice. The number of members 
is, however, as yet very small, and the mission has to 
contend with limited means, and to carry on its opera- 
tions in the face of many obstructions and difficulties. 

What are the prospects of the extension of Pro- 
testantism in France ? Various answers have been 
given to the question. Some think that the prevailing 
dissensions among French Protestants interpose a 
serious barrier in the way of progress. Others, more 
hopeful, think, that these divisions are only the indi- 
cations of renewed life and vigour, of the friction of 
mind with mind, which evinces earnestness, and cannot 
fail to lead to increased activity and effort. The obser- 
vations of a young Protestant pastor on this point are 
worth repeating. "Protestantism," said he, " is based 
on individiialism : it recognises the free action of the 
human mind ; and so long as the mind acts freely there 
will be controversy. The end of controversy is death. 
True, there is much incredulity abroad ; but the in- 
credulity is occasioned by the incredibilities of Popery. 
Let the ground once be cleared by free inquiry, and our 
Church will rise up amidst the ruins of superstition and 
unbelief, for man must have religion ; only it must be 
consistent with reason on the one hand, and with Divine 
revelation on the other. I for one do not fear the 
fullest and freest inquiry, having the most perfect con- 
fidence in the triumph of the truth." 

It is alleged by others that the bald form in which 
Protestantism is for the most part presented abroad, is 
not conformable with the " genius " of the men of Celtic 

Y 



322 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



and Latin race. However this may be, it is too gene- 
rally the case that where Frenchmen, like Italians and 
Spaniards, throw off Roman Catholicism, they do not 
stop at rejecting its superstitions, but reject religion 
itself. They find no intermediate standpoint in Pro- 
testantism, but fly off into the void of utter unbelief. 
The same tendency characterizes them in politics. They 
seem to oscillate between Caesarism and Red Repub- 
licanism ; aiming not at reform so much as revolution. 
They are averse to any ma media. When they have 
tried constitutionalism, they have broken down. So it 
has been with Protestantism, the constitutionalism of 
Christianity. The Huguenots at one time constituted 
a great power in France ; but despotism in politics and 
religion proved too strong for them, and they were 
persecuted, banished, and stamped for a time out of 
existence, or at least out of sight. 

Protestantism was more successful in Germany. Was 
it because it was more conformable to the " genius " of 
its people ? When the Germans " protested n against 
the prevailing corruptions in the Church, they did not 
seek to destroy it, but to reform it. They "stood upon 
the old ways," and sought to make them broader, 
straighter, and purer. They have pursued the same 
course in politics. Cooler and less impulsive than their 
Gallican neighbours, they have avoided revolutions, but 
are constantly seeking reforms. Of this course England 
itself furnishes a notable example. 

It is certainly a remarkable fact, that the stronghold 
of Protestantism in France was recently to be found 
among the population of Germanic origin seated along 
the valley of the Rhine ; whereas in the western 
districts Protestantism is split up by the two irre- 
concilable parties of Evangelicals and Rationalists. 



PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE. 323 

At the same time it should be borne in mind that 
Alsace did not become part of France until the year 
1715, and that the Lutherans of that province were 
never exposed to the ferocious persecutions to which 
the Evangelical Protestants of Old France were sub- 
jected, before as well as after the Eevocation of the 
Edict of Nantes. 

In Languedoc, in Dauphiny, and in the southern 
provinces generally, men and women who professed 
Protestantism were liable to be hanged or sent to the 
galleys, down to nearly the end of the last century. 
A Protestant pastor who exercised his vocation did so 
at the daily peril of his life. Nothing in the shape of 
a Protestant congregation was permitted to exist, and 
if Protestants worshipped together, it was in secret, in 
caves, in woods, among the hills, or in the " Desert.'' 
Yet Protestantism nevertheless contrived to exist 
through this long dark period of persecution, and even 
to increase. And when at length it became tolerated, 
towards the close of the last century, the numbers of 
its adherents appeared surprising to those who had 
imagined it to be altogether extinct. 

Indeed, looking at the persistent efforts made by 
Louis XIV. to exterminate the Huguenots, and to the 
fact that many hundred thousand of the best of them 
emigrated into foreign countries, while an equal number 
are supposed to have perished in prison, on the scaffold, 
at the galleys, and in their attempts to escape, it may 
almost be regarded as matter of wonder that the Eglise 
Reformee — the Church of the old Huguenots — should 
at the present day number about a thousand congrega- 
tions, besides the five hundred Lutheran congregations 
of Alsatia ; and that the Protestants of France should 
amount, in the whole, to about two millions of souls. 



CHAPTER III. 



VAL LOUISE HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF. 

GOME eight miles south of Briancon, on the road 
^ to Fort Dauphin, a little river called the Gryronde 
conies down from the glaciers of Mont Pelvoux, and 
falls into the Durance nearly opposite the village of 
La Bessie. This river flows through Yal Louise, the 
entrance into which can be discerned towards the north- 
west. Near the junction of the rivers, the ruins of an 
embattled wall, with entrenchments, are observed ex- 
tending across the valley of the Durance, a little below 
the narrow pass called the " Pertuis-Rostan," evidently 
designed to close it against an army advancing from 
the south. The country people still call these ruins 
the " Walls of the Vaudois ;"* and according to tradi- 
tion a great Vaudois battle was fought there ; but of 
any such battle history makes no mention. 

Indeed, so far as can be ascertained, the Yaudois of 
Dauphiny rarely if ever fought battles. They were 
too few in number, too much scattered among the 

* A gap in the mountain- wall to the left, nearly over La Bessie, is 
still known as "La Porte de Hannibal," through which, it is con- 
jectured, that general led his army. But opinion, which is much 
divided as to the route he took, is more generally in favour of his 
marching up the Isere, and passing into Italy by the Little St. 
Bernard. 



VAL LOUISE, 325 

mountams, and too poor and ill-armed, to be able to 
contend against the masses of disciplined soldiery that 
were occasionally sent into the valleys. All that they 
did was to watch, from their mountain look-outs, their 
enemies' approach, and hide themselves in caves ; or 
flee up to the foot of the glaciers till they had passed 
by. The attitude of the French Yaudois was thus for 
the most part passive ; and they very rarely, like the 
Italian Yaudois, offered any determined or organized 
resistance to persecution. Hence they have no such 
heroic story to tell of battles and sieges and victories. 
Their heroism was displayed in patience, steadfastness, 
and long-suffering, rather than in resisting force by 
force ; and they were usually ready to endure death in 
its most frightful forms rather than prove false to 
their faith. 

The ancient people of these valleys formed part of 
the flock of the Archbishop of Embrun. But history 
exhibits him as a very cruel shepherd. Thus, in 1335, 
there appears this remarkable entry in the accounts 
current of the bailli of Embrun : " Item, for perse- 
cuting the Yaudois, eight sols and thirty deniers of 
gold, ,, as if the persecution of the Yaudois had become 
a regular department of the public service. What was 
done with the Yaudois when they were seized and tried 
at Embrun further appears from the records of the 
diocese. In 1348, twelve of the inhabitants of Yal 
Louise were strangled at Embrun by the public execu- 
tioner ; and in 1393, a hundred and fifty inhabitants 
of the same valley were burned alive at the same place 
by order of the Inquisitor Borelli. But the most fatal 
of all the events that befell the inhabitants of Yal 
Louise was that which occurred about a century later, 
in 1488, when nearly the whole of the remaining popu- 



326 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



lation of the valley were destroyed in a cavern near 
the foot of Mont Pelvoux. 

This dreadful massacre was perpetrated by a French 
army, under the direction of Albert Catanee, the papal 
legate. The army had been sent into Piedmont with 
the object of subjugating or destroying the Yaudois on 
the Italian side of the Alps, but had returned dis- 
comfited to Brianeon, unable to effect their object. 
The legate then determined to take his revenge by an 
assault upon the helpless and unarmed French Yaudois, 
and suddenly directed his soldiers upon the valleys of 
Fressinieres and Louise. The inhabitants of the latter 
valley, surprised, and unable to resist an army of 
some twenty thousand men, abandoned their dwellings, 
and made for the mountains with all haste, accompanied 
by their families, and driving their flocks before them. 
On the slope of Mont Pelvoux, about a third of the way 
up, there was formerly a great cavern, on the combe 
of Capescure, called La Balme-Chapelle — though now 
nearly worn away by the disintegration of the mountain- 
side — in which the poor hunted people contrived to 
find shelter. They built up the approaches to the 
cavern, filled the entrance with rocks, and considered 
themselves to be safe. But their confidence proved 
fatal to them. The Count La Palud, who was in com- 
mand of the troops, seeing that it was impossible to 
force the entrance, sent his men up the mountain pro- 
vided with ropes ; and fixing them so that they should 
hang over the mouth of the cavern, a number of the 
soldiers slid down in full equipment, landing on the 
ledge right in front of the concealed Yaudois. Seized 
with a sudden panic, and being unarmed, many of them 
precipitated themselves over the rocks and were killed. 
The soldiers slaughtered all whom they could reach, 



VAL LOUISE. 



327 



after which they proceeded to heap up wood at the 
cavern mouth which they set on fire, and thus suffo- 
cated the remainder. Perrin says four hundred children 
were afterwards found in the cavern, stifled, in the 
arms of their dead mothers, and that not fewer than 
three thousand persons were thus ruthlessly destroyed. 
The little property of the slaughtered peasants was 
ordered by the Pope's legate to be divided amongst the 
vagabonds who had carried out his savage orders. The 
population having been thus exterminated, the district 
was settled anew some yeara later, in the reign of 
Louis XII., who gave his name to the valley ; and a 
number of "good and true Catholics," including many 
goitres and idiots,* occupied the dwellings and pos- 
sessed the lands of the slaughtered Vaudois. There is 
an old saying that " the blood of the martyrs is the 
seed of the Church," but assuredly it does not apply to 
Yal Louise, where the primitive Christian Church has 
been completely extinguished. 

There were other valleys in the same neighbour- 
hood, whither we are now wending, where the perse- 
cution, though equally ferocious, proved less destructive ; 
the inhabitants succeeding in making their escape into 
comparatively inaccessible places in the mountains 
before they could be put to the sword. For instance, in 
Val Fressiniere — also opening into the valley of the 
Durance a little lower down than Yal Louise — the 
Yaudois Church has never ceased to exist, and to this 
day the majority of the inhabitants belong to it. From 
the earliest times the people of the valley were dis- 
tinguished for their " heresy and as early as the 

* It has been noted that these unfortunates abound most in the 
villages occupied by the new settlers. Thus, of the population of the 
village of St. Crepin, in the valley of the Durance, not fewer than 
one-tenth are deaf and dumb, with a large proportion of idiots. 



328 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



fourteenth century eighty persons of Fressinieres and 
the neighbouring valley of Argentines, — willing to be 
martyrs rather than apostates, — were burnt at Embrun 
because of their religion. In the following century 
(1483) we find ninety-nine informations laid before 
John Lord Archbishop of Embrun against supposed 
heretics of Val Fressinieres. The suspected were 
ordered to wear a cross upon their dress, before and 
behind, and not to appear at church without displaying 
such crosses. But it further appears from the records, 
that, instead of wearing the crosses, most of the persons 
so informed against fled into the mountains and hid 
themselves away in caves for the space of five years. 

The next steps taken by the Archbishop are de- 
scribed in a Latin manuscript,* of which the following 
is a translation : — 

" Also, that in consequence of the ahove, the monk Francis Splireti, 
of the order of Mendicants, Professor in Theology, was deputed in the 
quality of Inquisitor of the said valleys ; and that in the year 1489, 
on the 1st of January, knowing that those of Freyssinier had relapsed 
into infamous heresy, and had not oheyed their orders, nor carried 
the cross on their dress, hut on the contrary had received their ex- 
communicated and "banished brethren without delivering them over to 
the Church, sent to them new citation, to which not having appeared, 
an adjournment of their condemnation as hardened heretics, when 
their goods would he confiscated, and themselves handed over to the 
secular power, was made to the 28th of June; but they remaining 
more obstinate than ever, so much so that no hope remains of bring- 
ing them back, all persons were forbidden to hold any communication 
whatsoever with them without permission of the Church, and it was 
ordered by the Procureur Fiscal that the aforesaid Inquisitor do pro- 
ceed, without further notice, to the execution of his office." 

What the execution of the Inquisitor's office meant, 
is, alas ! but too well known. Bonds and imprison- 
ment, scourgings and burnings at Embrun. The poor 
people appealed to the King of France for help against 

* This was one of the MSS. deposited by Samuel Morland (Oliver 
Cromwell's ambassador to Piedmont) at Cambiidge in 1658, and is 
quoted by Jean Leger in his History of the Vaudois Churches. 



VAL FRESSINIERES. 



3 2 9 



tlieir persecutors, but in vain. In 1498 the inhabitants 
of Fressinieres appeared by a procurator at Paris, on 
the occasion of the new sovereign, Louis XII., ascend- 
ing the throne. But as the King was then seeking the 
favour of a divorce from his wife, Anne of Brittany, 
from Pope Alexander VI., he turned a deaf ear to 
their petition for mercy. On the contrary, Louis con- 
firmed all the decisions of the clergy, and in return for 
the divorce which he obtained, he granted to the Pope's 
son, the infamous Ceesar Borgia, that very part of 
Dauphiny inhabited by the Vaudois, together with the 
title of Duke of Yalentinois. They had appealed, as 
it were, to the tiger for mercy, and they were referred 
to the vulture. 

The persecution of the people of the valleys thus 
suffered no relaxation, and all that remained for them 
was flight into the mountains, to places where they 
were most likely to remain unmolested. Hence they 
fled up to the very edge of the glaciers, and formed 
their settlements at almost the farthest limits of 
vegetation. There the barrenness of the soil, the in- 
hospitality of the climate, and the comparative in- 
accessibility of their villages, proved their security. 
Of them it might be truly said, that they "wandered 
about in sheep-skins and goat-skins ; being destitute, 
afflicted, tormented (of whom the world was not 
worthy) ; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, 
and in dens and caves of the earth." Yet the character 
of these poor peasants was altogether irreproachable. 
Even Louis XII. said of them, " Would to Gfod that I 
were as good a Christian as the worst of these people ! " 
The wonder is that, in the face of their long-continued 
persecutions, extending over so many centuries, any 
remnant of the original population of the valleys 



330 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



should have been preserved. Long after the time of 
Louis XII. and Caesar Borgia, the French historian, 
De Thou (writing in 1556), thus describes the people 
of Val Fressinieres : "Notwithstanding their squalid- 
ness, it is surprising that they are very far from being 
uncultivated in their morals. They almost all under- 
stand Latin* and are able to write fairly enough. 
They understand also as much of French as will enable 
them to read the Bible and to sing psalms ; nor would 
you easily find a boy among them who, if he were 
questioned as to the religious opinions which they 
hold in common with the Waldenses, would not be 
able to give from memory a reasonable account of 
them." * 

After the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes, the 
Vaudois enjoyed a brief respite from their sufferings. 
They then erected temples, appointed ministers, and 
worshipped openly. This, however, only lasted for a 
short time, and when the Edict was revoked, and per- 
secution began again, in the reign of Louis XIV., their 
worship was suppressed wherever practicable. But 
though the Vaudois temples were pulled down and 
their ministers banished, the Roman Catholics failed 
to obtain a footing in the valley. Some of the pas- 
tors continued to brave the fury of the persecutors, 
and wandered about from place to place among the 
scattered flocks, ministering to them at the peril of 
their lives. Rewards were offered for their appre- 
hension, and a sort of " Hue and Cry " was issued by 
the police, describing their age, and height, and 
features, as if they had been veritable criminals. And 
when they were apprehended they were invariably 
hanged. As late as 1767 the parliament of Grenoble 
* De Tliou's History, book xxvii. 



HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF. 



33i 



condemned their pastor Berenger to death for con- 
tinuing to preach to congregations in the "Desert." 

This religions destitution of the Yaudois continued 
to exist until a comparatively recent period. The 
people were without either pastors or teachers, and 
religion had become a tradition with them rather than 
an active living faith. Still, though poor and destitute, 
they held to their traditional belief, and refused to 
conform to the dominant religion. And so they con- 
tinued until within the last forty years, when the fact 
of the existence of these remnants of the ancient 
Vaudois in the valleys of the High Alps came to the 
knowledge of Felix Neff, and he determined to go to 
their help and devote himself to their service. 

One would scarcely expect to find the apostle of the 
High Alps in the person of a young Swiss soldier of 
artillery. Yet so it was. In his boyhood, Neff read 
Plutarch, which filled his mind with admiration of the 
deeds of the great men of old. "While passing through 
the soldier phase of his career the " Memoirs of Oberlin " 
accidentally came under his notice, the perusal of which 
gave quite a new direction to his life. Becoming 
impressed by religion, his ambition now was to be 
a missionary. Leaving the army, in which he had 
reached the rank of sergeant at nineteen, he proceeded 
to prepare himself for the ministry, and after studying 
for a time, and passing his preliminary examinations, 
he was, in conformity with the custom of the Geneva 
Church, employed on probation as a lay helper in 
parochial work. In this capacity JSTeff first went to 
Mens, in the department of Isere, where he officiated 
in the absence of the regular pastor, as well as occa- 
sionally at Yizille, for a period of about two years. 



332 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



It was wliile residing at Mens that the young mis- 
sionary first heard of the existence of the scattered 
communities of primitive Christians on the High Alps, 
descendants of the ancient Vaudois ; and his mind 
became inflamed with the desire of doing for them 
what Oberlin had done for the poor Protestants of the 
Ban de la Roche. " I am always dreaming of the High 
Alps/' he wrote to a friend, "and I would rather be 
stationed there than under the beautiful sky of 
Languedoc." 

But it was first necessary that he should receive 
ordination for the ministry ; and accordingly in 1823, 
when in his twenty-fifth year, he left Mens with that 
object. He did not, however, seek ordination by the 
National Church of Geneva, which, in his opinion, had 
in a great measure ceased to hold Evangelical truth ; 
but he came over to London, at the invitation of Mr. 
Cook and Mr. Wilks, two Congregational ministers, by 
whom he was duly ordained a minister in the Inde- 
pendent Chapel, Poultry. 

Shortly after his return to France, Neff, much to his 
own satisfaction, was invited as pastor to the very dis- 
trict in which he so much desired to minister — the 
most destitute in the High Alps. Before setting out 
he wrote in his journal, " To-morrow, with the blessing 
of God, I mean to push for the Alps by the sombre and 
picturesque valley of L'Oisan." After a few days, the 
young pastor was in the scene of his future labours ; 
and he proceeded to explore hamlet after hamlet in 
search of the widely- scattered flock committed to his 
charge, and to arrange his plans for the working of his 
extensive parish. 

But it was more than a parish, for it embraced 
several of the most extensive, rugged, and mountainous 



HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF. 



333 



arrondissements of the High Alps. Though the whole 
number of people in his charge did not amount to more 
than six or seven hundred, they lived at great distances 
from each other, the churches to which he ministered 
being in some cases as much as eighty miles apart, 
separated by gorges and moimtain-passes, for the most 
part impassable in winter. Neff's district extended in 
one direction from Vars to Briancon, and in another 
from Champsaur in the valle}^ of the Drac to San Yeran 
on the slope of Monte Yiso, close to the Italian frontier. 
His residence was fixed at La Chalp, above Queyras, 
but as he rarely slept more than three nights in one 
place, he very seldom enjoj^ed its seclusion. 

The labour which Neff imposed upon himself was 
immense ; and it was especially in the poorest and most 
destitute districts that he worked the hardest. He dis- 
regarded alike the summer's heat and the winter's cold. 
His first visit to Dormiihouse, in Yal Fressinieres, 
was made in January, when the mountain-paths were 
blocked with ice and snow; but, assembling the young 
men of the village, he went out with them armed with 
hatchets, and cut steps in the ice to enable the worship- 
pers from the lower hamlets to climb up to service in 
the village church. The people who first came to hear 
him preach at Yiolens brought wisps of straw with 
them, which they lighted to guide them through the 
snow, while others, who had a greater distance to walk, 
brought pine torches. 

Nothing daunted, the valiant soldier, furnished 
with a stout staff and shod with heavy -nailed shoes, 
covered with linen socks to prevent slipping on the 
snow, would set out with his wallet on his back 
across the Col d'Orcieres in winter, in the track of the 
lynx and the chamois, wioh the snow and sleet beating 



33* THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 

against his face, to visit his people on the other side 
of the mountain. His patience, his perseverance, his 
sweetness of temper, were unfailing. " Ah ! " said one 
unbelieving Thomas of Val Fressinieres in his mountain 
patois, " you have come among us like a woman who 
attempts to kindle a fire with green wood ; she exhausts 
her breath in blowing it to keep the little flame alive, 
but the moment she quits it, it is instantly extin- 
guished." 

Neff nevertheless laboured on with hope, and neither 
discouragement nor obstruction slackened his efforts. 
And such labours could not fail of their effect. He 
succeeded in inspiring the simple mountaineers with 
his own zeal, he evoked their love, and excited their 
enthusiastic admiration. When he returned to Dormil- 
house after a brief absence, the whole village would 
turn out and come down the mountain to meet and 
embrace him. " The rocks, the cascades, nay, the very 
glaciers,' ' he wrote to a friend, " all seemed animated, 
and presented a smiling aspect ; the savage country 
became agreeable and dear to me from the moment 
its inhabitants were my brethren." 

Unresting and indefatigable, Neff was always at 
work. He exhorted the people in hovels 3 held schools 
in barns in which he taught the children, and cate- 
chised them in stables. His hand was in every good 
work. He taught the people to sing, he taught them 
to read, he taught them to pray. To be able to speak 
to them familiarly, he learnt their native patois, and 
laboured at it like a schoolboy. He worked as a mis- 
sionary among savages. The poor mountaineers had 
been so long destitute of instruction, that everything 
had as it were to be begun with them from the begin- 
ning. Sharing in their hovels and stables, with their 



HISTORY OF FELIX NEFF. 



335 



squalor and smoke, he taught them how to improve 
them by adding chimneys and windows, and showed 
how warmth might be obtained more healthfully than 
by huddling together in winter-time with the cattle. 
He taught them manners, and especially greater respect 
for women, inculcating the lesson by his own gentle- 
ness and tender deference. Out of doors, he showed 
how they might till the ground to greater advantage, 
and introduced an improved culture of the potato, which 
more than doubled the production. Observing how the 
pastures of Dormilhouse were scorched by the summer 
sun, he urged the adoption of a system of irrigation. 
The villagers were at first most obstinate in their oppo- 
sition to his plans ; but he persevered, laid out a canal, 
and succeeded at last in enlisting a body of workmen, 
whom he led out, pickaxe in hand, himself taking a 
foremost part in the work ; and at last the waters were 
let into the canal amidst joy and triumph. At Yiolens 
he helped to build and finish the chapel, himself doing 
mason- work, smith-work, and carpenter- work by turns. 
At Dormilhouse a school was needed, and he showed 
the villagers how to build one ; preparing the design, 
and taking part in the erection, until it was finished 
and ready for use. In short, he turned his hand to 
everything — nothing was too high or too low for this 
noble citizen of two worlds. At length a serious 
accident almost entirely disabled him. While on one 
of his mountain journeys, he was making a detour 
amongst a mass of rocky debris, to avoid the dangers 
of an avalanche, when he had the misfortune to fall and 
severely sprain his knee. He became laid up for a 
time, and when able to move, he set out for his mother's 
home at Geneva, in the hope of recovering health and 
strength; for his digestive powers were also by this 



336 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



time seriously injured. When he went away, the 
people of the valleys felt as if they should never see 
him more ; and their sorrow at his departure was 
heart-rending. After trying the baths of Plombieres 
without effect, he proceeded onwards to Geneva, which 
he reached only to die ; and thus this good and noble 
soldier — one of the bravest of earth's heroes — passed 
away to his eternal reward at the early age of thirty- 
one. 

The valley of Fressinieres — the principle scene of 
Neff's labours — joins the valley of the Durance nearly 
opposite the little hamlet of La Eoche. There we 
leave the high road from Briancon to Fort Dauphin, 
and crossing the river by a timber bridge, ascend the 
steep mountain- side by a mule path, in order to reach 
the entrance to the valley of Fressinieres, the level of 
which is high above that of the Durance. Not many 
years since, the higher valley could only be approached 
from this point by a very difficult mountain-path amidst 
rocks and stones, called the Ladder, or Pas de l'Echelle. 
It was dangerous at all times, and quite impassable in 
winter. The mule-path which has lately been made, 
though steep, is comparatively easy. 

What the old path was, and what were the discom- 
forts of travelling through this district in Neff's time, 
may be appreciated on a perusal of the narrative of the 
young pastor Bost, who in 1840 determined to make a 
sort of pilgrimage to the scenes of his friend's labours 
some seventeen years before. M. Bost, however, rather 
exaggerates the difficulties and discomforts of the 
valleys than otherwise. He saw no beauty nor grandeur 
in the scenery, only " horrible mountains in a state of 
dissolution " and constantly ready to fall upon the heads 



PARSONAGE AT PALONS. 



of passing travellers. He had no eyes for the picturesque 
though gloomy lake of La Roche, but saw only the 
miserable hamlet itself. He slept in the dismal 
little inn, as doubtless Neff had often done before, and 
was horrified by the multitudinous companions that 
shared his bed ; and, tumbling out, he spent the rest of 
the night on the floor. The food was still worse — cold 
cafe noir, and bread eighteen months old, soaked in 
water before it could be eaten. His breakfast that 
morning made him ill for a week. Then his mounting 
up the Pas de l'Echelle, which he did not climb " with- 
out profound emotion," was a great trouble to him. Of 
all this we find not a word in the journals or letters of 
Neff, whose early life as a soldier had perhaps better 
inured him to " roughing it " than the more tender 
bringing-up of Pastor Bost. 

As we rounded the shoulder of the hill, almost, 
directly overlooking the ancient Roman town of Rama 
in the valley of the Durance underneath, we shortly 
came in sight of the little hamlet of Palons, a group of 
" peasants' nests," overhung by rocks, with the one 
good house in it, the comfortable parsonage of the Pro- 
testant pastor, situated at the very entrance to the 
valley. Although the peasants' houses which consti- 
tute the hamlet of Palons are still very poor and 
miserable, the place has been greatly improved since 
JNTeff's time, by the erection of the parsonage. It was 
found that the pastors who were successively appointed 
to minister to the poor congregations in the valley very 
aoon became unfitted for their work by the hardships 
to which they were exposed ; and being without any 
suitable domestic accommodation, one after another of 
them resigned their charge. 

To remedy this defect, a movement was begun in 

z 



338 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



1852 by the Bev. Mr. Freemantle, rector of Clay don, 
Bucks, assisted by the Foreign Aid Society and a few 
private friends, with the object of providing pastors' 
dwellings, as well as chapels when required, in the 
more destitute places. The movement has already been 
attended with considerable success ; and among its first 
results was the erection in 1857 of the comfortable 
parsonage of Palons, the large lower room of which 
also serves the purpose of a chapel. The present in- 
cumbent is M. Charpiot, of venerable and patriarchal 
aspect, whose white hairs are a crown of glory — a man 
beloved by his extensive flock, for his parish embraces 
the whole valley, about twelve miles in extent, includ- 
ing the four villages of Ribes, Yiolens, Minsals, and 
Dormilhouse ; other pastors having been appointed of 
late years to the more distant stations included in the 
original widely- scattered charge of Felix JNeff. 

The situation of the parsonage and adjoining grounds 
at Palons is charmingly picturesque. It stands at 
the entrance to the defile which leads into Val Fres- 
sinieres, having a background of bold rocks enclosing a 
mountain plateau known as the " Camp of Catinat," a 
notorious persecutor of the Yaudois. In front of the 
parsonage extends a green field planted with walnut 
and other trees, part of which is walled off as the 
burying-ground of the hamlet. Alongside, in a deep 
rocky gully, runs the torrent of the Biasse, leaping 
from rock to rock on its way to the valley of the 
Durance, far below. This fall, or cataract, is not in- 
appropriately named the " Gouffouran," or roaring 
gulf ; and its sullen roar is heard all through the 
night in the adjoining parsonage. The whole height 
of the fall, as it tumbles from rock to rock, is about 
four hundred and fifty feet j and about half-way down, 



VAL LOUISE. 



339 



the water shoots into a deep, dark cavern, where it 
becomes completely lost to sight. 

The inhabitants of the hamlet are a poor hard-work- 
ing people, pursuing their industry after very primitive 
methods. Part of the Biasse, as it issues from the 
defile, is turned aside here and there to drive little 
fulling-mills of the rudest construction, where the 
people "waulk" the cloth of their own making. In 
the adjoining narrow fields overhanging the Gouffouran, 
where the ploughs are at work, the oxen are yoked to 
them in the old Roman fashion, the pull being by a 
bar fixed across the animals' foreheads. 

In the neighbourhood of Palons, as at various other 
places in the valley, there are numerous caverns which 
served by turns in early times as hiding-places and as 
churches, and which were not unfrequently consecrated 
by the Yaudois with their blood. One of these is still 
known as the " Glesia," or " Eglise." Its opening is 
on the crest of a frightful precipice, but its diameter 
has of late years been considerably reduced by the dis- 
integration of the adjoining rock. ISTeff once took 
Captain Cotton up to see it, and chanted the Te Deum 
in the rude temple with great emotion. 

Palons is, perhaps, the most genial and fertile spot 
in the valley ; it looks like a little oasis in the 
desert. Indeed, Neff thought the soil of the place too 
rich for the growth of piety. " Palons, " said he in his 
journal, " is more fertile than the rest of the valley, and 
even produces wine : the consequence is, that there is 
less piety here." Neff even entertained the theory that 
the poorer the people the greater was their humility and 
fervour, and the less their selfishness and spiritual pride. 
Thus, he considered "the fertility of the commune of 
Champsaur, and its proximity to the high road and to 



340 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 

Gap, great stumbling-blocks " The loftiest, coldest, 
and most barren spots — such, as San Yeran and Dormil- 
bouse — were, in bis opinion, by far tbe most promising. 
Of tbe former be said, "It is tbe bigbest, and conse- 
quently tbe most pious, Tillage in tbe yalley of Queyras ; " 
and of tbe inbabitants of tbe latter be said, " From tbe 
first moment of my arrival I took tbem to my beart, 
and I ardently desired to be unto tbem even as anotber 
Ober!^." 



CHAPTEE IV. 



THE VAUDOIS MOUNTAIN-REFUGE OF DORMILHOUSE. 

THE valley of Fressinieres could never have main- 
tained a large population. Though about twelve 
miles in extent, it contains a very small proportion of 
arable land — only a narrow strip, of varying width, 
lying in the bottom, with occasional little patches of cul- 
tivated ground along the mountain- sides, where the soil 
has settled on the ledges, the fields seeming in many 
cases to hang over precipices. At the upper end of the 
valley, the mountains come down so close to the river 
Biasse that no space is left for cultivation, and the 
slopes are so rocky and abrupt as to be unavailable even 
for pasturage, excepting of goats. 

Yet the valley seems never to have been without a 
population, more or less numerous according to the 
rigour of the religious persecutions which prevailed in 
the neighbourhood. Its comparative inaccessibility, 
its inhospitable climate, and its sterility, combined to 
render it one of the most secure refuges of the Yaudois 
in the Middle Ages. It could neither be easily entered 
by an armed force, nor permanently occupied by them. 
The scouts on the hills overlooking the Durance could 
always see their enemies approach, and the inhabit- 
ants were enabled to take refuge in caves in the mount- 



342 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



ain-sides, or flee to the upper parts of the valley, before 
the soldiers could clamber up the steep Pas de l'Echelle, 
and reach the barricaded defile through which the 
Biasse rushes down the rocky gorge of the GoufFouran. 
When the invaders succeeded in penetrating this barrier, 
they usually found the hamlets deserted and the people 
fled. They could then only wreak their vengeance on 
the fields, which they laid waste, and on the dwellings, 
which they burned ; and when the " brigands " had at 
length done their worst and departed, the poor people 
crept back to their ruined homes to pray, amidst their 
ashes, for strength to enable them to bear the heavy 
afflictions which they were thus called upon to suffer for 
conscience' sake. 

The villages in the lower part of the valley were 
thus repeatedly ravaged and destroyed. But far up, at 
its extremest point, a difficult footpath led, across the 
face almost of a precipice, which the persecutors never 
ventured to scale, to the hamlet of Dormilhouse, seated 
on a few ledges of rock on a lofty mountain- side, five 
thousand feet above the level of the sea ; and this place, 
which was for centuries a mountain fastness of the 
persecuted, remains a Yaudois settlement to this day. 

An excursion to this interesting mountain hamlet 
having been arranged, our little party of five persons 
set out for the place on the morning of the 1st of July, 
under the guidance of Pastor Charpiot. Though the 
morning was fine and warm, yet, as the place of our 
destination was situated well up amongst the clouds, we 
were warned to provide ourselves with umbrellas and 
waterproofs, nor did the provision prove in vain. We 
were &lso warned that there was an utter want of accom- 
modation for visitors at Dormilhouse, for which we 
must be prepared. The words scratched on the window 



VAL FRESSINIERES. 



343 



of the Norwegian inn might indeed apply to it : " Here 
the stranger may find very good entertainment — pro- 
vided he bring it with him I" We accordingly carried 
onr entertainment with us, in the form of a store of 
blankets, bread, chocolate, and other articles, which, 
with the traveller's knapsacks, were slung across the 
back of a donkey. 

After entering the defile, an open part of the valley 
was passed, amidst which the little river, at present 
occupying very narrow limits, meandered ; but it was 
obvious from the width of the channel and the debris 
widely strewn about, that in winter it is a roaring tor- 
rent. A little way up we met an old man coming down 
driving a loaded donkey, with whom one of our party, 
recognising him as an old acquaintance, entered into 
conversation. In answer to an inquiry made as to the 
progress of the good cause in the valley, the old man 
replied very despondingly. " There was," he said, " a 
great lack of faith, of zeal, of earnestness, amongst the 
rising generation. They were too fond of pleasures, too 
apt to be led away by the fleeting vanities of this 
world." It was only the old story — the complaint of 
the aged against the young. When this old peasant 
was a boy, his elders doubtless thought and said the 
same of him. The generation, growing old always 
think the generation still young in a state of degene- 
racy. So it was forty years since, when Felix Neff was 
amongst them, and so it will be forty years hence. One 
day Neff met an old man near Mens, who recounted 
to him the story of the persecutions which his parents 
and himself had endured, and he added : " In those times 
there was more zeal than there is now ; my father and 
mother used to cross mountains and forests by night, in 
the worst weather, at the risk of their lives, to be 



344 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



present at divine service performed in secret ; but 
now we are grown lazy : religious freedom is the death- 
blow to piety." 

An hour's walking brought us to the principal hamlet 
of the commune, formerly called Fressinieres, but now 
known as Les Ribes, occupying a wooded height on 
the left bank of the river. The population is partly 
Roman Catholic and partly Protestant. The Roman 
Catholics have a church here, the last in the valley, the 
two other places of worship higher up being Protestant. 
The principal person of Les Ribes is M. Baridon, son 
of the Joseph Baridon, receiver of the commune, so 
often mentioned with such affection in the journal of 
Neff. He is the only person in the valley whose 
position and education give him a claim to the title of 
" Monsieur ;" and his house contains the only decent 
apartment in the Yal Fressinieres where pastors and 
visitors could be lodged previous to the erection, by 
Mr. Freemantle, of the pleasant little parsonage at 
Palons. This apartment in the Baridons' house Neff 
used to call the " Prophet's Chamber." 

Half an hour higher up the valley we reached the 
hamlet of Violens, where all the inhabitants are Pro- 
testants. It was at this place that Neff helped to build 
and finish the church, for which he designed the seats 
and pulpit, and which he opened and dedicated on the 
29th of August, 1824, the year before he finally left 
the neighbourhood. Yiolens is a poor hamlet situated 
at the bottom of a deep glen, or rocky abyss, called La 
Combe ; the narrow valleys of Dauphiny, like those of 
Devon, being usually called combes, doubtless from the 
same original Celtic word civm, signifying a hollow or 
dingle. 

A little above Yiolens the valley contracts almost to 



VAL FRJESSINIERES. 



345 



a ravine, until we reach the miserable hamlet of 
Minsals, so shut in by steep crags that for nine 
months of the year it never sees the sun, and during 
several months in winter it lies buried in snow. The 
hamlet consists for the most part of hovels of mud and 
stone, without windows or chimneys, being little better 
than stables ; indeed, in winter time, for the sake of 
warmth, the poor people share them with their cattle. 
How they contrive to scrape a living out of the patches 
of soil rescued from the rocks, or hung upon the pre- 
cipices on the mountain-side, is a wonder. 

One of the horrors of this valley consists in the con- 
stant state of disintegration of the adjoining rocks, 
which, being of a slaty formation, frequently break 
away in large masses, and are hurled into the lower 
grounds. This, together with the fall of avalanches in 
winter, makes the valley a most perilous place to live 
in. A little above Minsals, only a few years since, a 
tremendous fall of rock and mud swept over nearly the 
whole of the cultivated ground, since which many of 
the peasantry have had to remove elsewhere. What 
before was a well-tilled meadow, is now only a desolate 
waste, covered with rocks and debris. 

Another of the horrors of the place is its liability to 
floods, which come rushing down from the mountains, 
and often work sad havoc. Sometimes a fall of rocks 
from the cliffs above dams up the bed of the river, when 
a lake accumulates behind the barrier until it bursts, 
and the torrent swoops down the valley, washing away 
fields, and bridges, and mills, and hovels. 

Even the stouter-built dwelling of M. Baridon at 
Les Bibes was nearly carried away by one of such in- 
undations twelve years ago. It stands about a hundred 
yards from the mountain- stream which comes down 



346 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



from the Pic de la Sea. One day in summer a storm 
burst over the mountain, and the stream at once became 
swollen to a torrent. The inmates of the dwelling 
thought the house must eventually be washed away, and 
gave themselves up to prayer. The flood, bearing 
with it rolling rocks, came nearer and nearer, until it 
reached a few old walnut trees on a line with the 
torrent. A rock of some thirty feet square tumbled 
against one of the trees, which staggered and bent, but 
held fast and stopped the rock. The debris at once 
rolled upon it into a bank, the course of the torrent was 
turned, and the dwelling and its inmates were saved. 

Another incident, illustrative of the perils of daily 
life in Yal Fressinieres, was related to me by Mr. 
Milsom while passing the scene of one of the mud and 
rock avalanches so common in the valley. Etienne 
Baridon, a member of the same Les Ribes family, an 
intelligent young man, disabled for ordinary work by 
lameness and deformity, occupied himself in teaching 
the children in the Protestant school at Violens, 
whither he walked daily, accompanied by the pupils 
from Les Ribes. One day, a heavy thunderstorm 
burst over the valley, and sent down an avalanche of 
mud, debris, and boulders, which rolled quite across 
the valley and extended to the river. The news of 
the circumstance reached Etienne when in school at 
Yiolens ; the road to Les Ribes was closed ; and he 
was accordingly urged to stay over the night with the 
children. But thinking of the anxiety of their parents, 
he determined to guide them back over the fall of rocks 
if possible. Arrived at the place, he found the mass 
still on the move, rolling slowly down in a ridge of 
from ten to twenty feet high, towards the river. Sup- 
ported by a stout staff, the lame Baridon took first one 



D ORMILHO USE. 



347 



child and then another upon his hump-hack, and con- 
trived to carry them across in safety ; but while making 
his last journey with the last child, his foot slipped and 
his leg got badly crushed among the still-rolling stones. 
He was, however, able to extricate himself, and reached 
Les Bibes in safety with all the children. "This 
Etienne," concluded Mr. Milsom, "was really a noble 
fellow, and his poor deformed body covered the soul of 
a hero." 

At length, after a journey of about ten miles up this 
valley of the shadow of death, along which the poor 
persecuted Yaudois were so often hunted, we reached 
an apparent cul-de-sac amongst the mountains, beyond 
which further progress seemed impracticable. Pre- 
cipitous rocks, with their slopes of debris at foot, closed 
in the valley all round, excepting only the narrow gullet 
by which we had come ; but, following the footpath, a 
way up the mountain- side gradually disclosed itself — a 
zigzag up the face of what seemed to be a sheer pre- 
cipice — and this we were told was the road to Dormil- 
house. The zigzag path is known as the Tourniquet. 
The ascent is long, steep, and fatiguing. As we passed 
up, we observed that the precipice contained many 
narrow ledges upon which soil has settled, or to which 
it has been carried. Some of these are very narrow, only 
a few yards in extent, but wherever there is room for a 
spade to turn, the little patches bear marks of cultiva- 
tion ; and these are the fields of the people of Dormil- 
house ! 

Far up the mountain, the footpath crosses in front 
of a lofty cascade — La Pisse du Dormilhouse — which 
leaps from the summit of the precipice, and sometimes 
dashes over the roadway itself. Looking down into 
the valley from this point, we see the Biasse meander- 



34-8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



ing like a thread in the hollow of the mountains, 
becoming lost to sight in the ravine near Minsals. 
We have now ascended to a great height, and the air 
feels cold and raw. When we left Palons, the sun was 
shining brightly, and its heat was almost oppressive, 
but now the temperature feels wintry. On our way up, 
rain began to fall ; as we ascended the Tourniquet the 
rain became changed to sleet ; and at length, on reach- 
ing the summit of the rising ground from which we 
first discerned the hamlet of Dormilhouse, on the first 
day of J uly, the snow was falling heavily, and all the 
neighbouring mountains were clothed in the garb of 
winter. 

This, then, is the famous mountain fastness of the 
Vaudois — their last and loftiest and least accessible 
retreat when hunted from their settlements in the 
lower valleys hundreds of years ago. Driven from 
rock to rock, from Alp to Alp, they clambered up on 
to this lofty mountain-ledge, five thousand feet high, 
and made good their settlement, though at the daily 
peril of their lives. It was a place of refuge, a fortress 
and citadel of the faithful, where they continued to 
worship God according to conscience during the long 
dark ages of persecution and tyranny. The dangers 
and terrors of the situation are indeed so great, that it 
never could have been chosen even for a hiding-place, 
much less for a permanent abode, but from the direst 
necessity. What the poor people suffered while esta- 
blishing themselves on these barren mountain heights 
no one can tell, but they contrived at length to make 
the place their home, and to become inured to their 
hard life, until it became almost a second nature to 
them. 

The hamlet of Dormilhouse is said to have existed 



DORMILHOUSE. 



349 



for nearly six hundred years, during which the religion 
of its inhabitants has remained the same. It has been 
alleged that the people are the descendants of a colony 
of refugee Lombards ; but M. Muston, and others well 
able to judge, after careful inquiry on the spot, have 
come to the conclusion that they bear all the marks of 
being genuine descendants of the ancient Vaudois. In 
features, dress, habits, names, language, and religious 
doctrine, they have an almost perfect identity with the 
Yaudois of Piedmont at the present day. 

Dormilhouse consists of about forty cottages, in- 
habited by some two hundred persons. The cottages 
are perched " like eagles' nests," one tier ranging over 
another on the rocky ledges of a steep mountain-side. 
There is yery little soil capable of cultivation in the 
neighbourhood, but the villagers seek out little patches 
in the valley below and on the mountain shelves, from 
which they contrive to grow a little grain for home 
use. The place is so elevated and so exposed, that in 
some seasons even rye will not ripen at Dormilhouse, 
while the pasturages are in many places inaccessible to 
cattle, and scarcely safe for sheep. 

The principal food of the people is goats' milk and 
unsifted rye, which they bake into cakes in the autumn, 
and these cakes last them the whole year — the grain, 
if left unbaked, being apt to grow mouldy and spoil in 
so damp an atmosphere. Besides, fuel is so scarce that 
it is necessary to exercise the greatest economy in its 
use, every stick burnt in the village having to be 
brought from a distance of some twelve miles, on the 
backs of donkeys, by the steep mountain-path leading 
up to the hamlet. Hence, also, the unsavoury means 
which they are under the necessity of adopting to 
economize warmth in the winter, by stabling the cattle 



350 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



with themselves in the cottages. The huts are for the 
most part wretched constructions of stone and mud, 
from which fresh air, comfort, and cleanliness seem to 
be entirely excluded. Excepting that- the people are 
for the most part comfortably dressed, in clothing of 
coarse wool, which they dress and weave themselves, 
their domestic accommodation and manner of living are 
centuries behind the age ; and were a stranger suddenly 
to be set down in the village, he could with difficulty 
be made to believe that he was in the land of civilised 
Frenchmen. 

The place is dreary, stern, and desolate-looking even 
in summer. Thus, we entered it with the snow falling 
on the 1st of J uly ! Few of the balmy airs of the sweet 
South of France breathe here. In the hollow of the 
mountains the heat may be like that of an oven ; but 
here, far up on the heights, though the air may be 
fresh and invigorating at times, when the wind blows 
it often rises to a hurricane. Here the summer comes 
late and departs early. While flowers are blooming in 
the valleys, not a bud or blade of corn is to be seen at 
Dormilhouse. At the season when vegetation is else- 
where at its richest, the dominant features of the land- 
scape are barrenness and desolation. The very shapes 
of the mountains are rugged, harsh, and repulsive. 
Right over against the hamlet, separated from it by a 
deep gully, rises up the grim, bare Gramusac, as black 
as a wall, but along the ledges of which, the hunters of 
Dormilhouse, who are very daring and skilful, do not 
fear to stalk the chamois. 

But if the place is thus stern and even appalling in 
summer, what must it be in winter ?. There is scarcely 
a habitation in the village that is not exposed to the 
danger of being carried away by avalanches or falling 



D ORMILHO USE. 



35 



rocks. The approach to the mountain is closed by ice 
and snow, while the rocks are all tapestried with icicles. 
The tourmente, or snow whirlwind, occasionally swoops 
up the valley, tears the roofs from the huts, and scatters 
them in destr action. 

Here is a passage from Neff's journal, vividly de- 
scriptive of winter life at Dormilhouse : — 

" The weather has heen rigorous in the extreme ; the falls of 
snow are very frequent, and when it becomes a little milder, a general 
thaw takes place, and our hymns are often sung amid the roar of the 
avalanches, which, gliding along the smooth face of the glacier, hurl 
themselves from precipice to precipice, like vast cataracts of silver." 

"Writing in January, he says : — 

"We have heen buried in four feet of snow since of 1st of Novem- 
ber. At this very moment a terrible blast is whirling the snow in 
thick blinding clouds. Travelling is exceedingly difficult and even 
dangerous among these valleys, particularly in the neighbourhood of 
Dormilhouse, by reason of the numerous avalanches falling every- 
where One Sunday evening our scholars and many of the 

Dormilhouse people, when returing home after the sermon at Violens, 
narrowly escaped an avalanche. It rolled through a narrow defile 
between two groups of persons : a few seconds sooner or later, and it 
would have plunged the flower of our youth into the depths of an 

unfathomable gorge In fact, there are very few habitations in 

these parts which are not liable to be swept away, for there is not a 
spot in the narrow corner of the valley which can be considered abso- 
lutely safe. But terrible as their situation is, they owe to it their re- 
ligion, and perhaps their physical existence. If their country had 
been more secure and more accessible, they would have been extermi- 
nated like the inhabitants of Val Louise." 

Such is the interesting though desolate mountain ham- 
let to the service of whose hardy inhabitants the brave 
Felix Neff devoted himself during the greater part of 
his brief missionary career. It was characteristic of 
him to prefer to serve them because their destitution 
was greater than that which existed in any other 
quarter of his extensive parish ; and he turned from the 
grand mountain scenery of Arvieux and his comfortable 
cottage at La Chalp, to spend his winters in the dismal 
hovels and amidst the barren wastes of Dormilhouse. 



35* THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



TYhen Neff first went amongst them, the people were 
in a state of almost total spiritual destitution. They 
had not had any pastor stationed amongst them for 
nearly a hundred and fifty years. During all that 
time they had been without schools of any kind, and 
generation after generation had grown up and passed 
away in ignorance. Yet with all the inborn tenacity 
of their race, they had throughout refused to conform 
to the dominant religion. They belonged to the 
Yaudois Church, and repudiated Romanism. 

There was probably a Protestant church existing at 
Dormilhouse previous to the Revocation, as is shown 
by the existence of an ancient Yaudois church-bell, 
which was hid away until of late years, when it was 
dug up and hung in the belfry of the present church. 
In 1745, the Roman Catholics endeavoured to effect a 
settlement in the place, and then erected the existing 
church, with a residence for the cure. But the people, 
though they were on the best of terms with the cure, 
refused to enter his church. During the twenty years 
that he ministered there, it is said the sole congrega- 
tion consisted of his domestic servant, who assisted 
him at mass. 

The story is still told of the cure bringing up from 
Les Ribes a large bag of apples — an impossible crop at 
Dormilhouse — by way of tempting the children to come 
to him and receive instruction. But they went only so 
long as the apples lasted, and when they were gone the 
children disappeared. The cure complained that during 
the whole time he had been in the place he had not 
been able to get a single person to cross himself. So, 
finding he was not likely to be of any use there, he 
petitioned his bishop to be allowed to leave ; on which, 
his request being complied with, the church was closed. 



D ORMILHO USE. 



353 



This continued until the period of the French Revo- 
lution, when religious toleration became recognised. 
The Dormilhouse people then took possession of the 
church. They found in it several dusty images, the 
basin for the holy water, the altar candlesticks, and 
other furniture, just as the cure had left them many 
years before ; and they are still preserved as curiosities. 
The new occupants of the church whitewashed the 
pictures, took down the crosses, dug up the old Yaudois 
bell and hung it up in the belfry, and rang the villagers 
together to celebrate the old worship again. But they 
were still in want of a regular minister until the period 
when Felix INeff settled amongst them. A zealous 
young preacher, Henry Laget, had before then paid 
them a few visits, and been warmly welcomed ; and 
when, in his last address, he told them they would see 
his face no more, "it seemed," said a peasant who re- 
lated the incident to Neff, " as if a gust of wind had 
extinguished the torch which was to light us in our 
passage by night across the precipice." And even 
Self's ministry, as we have above seen, only lasted for 
the short space of about three years. 

Some years after the death of Neff, another attempt 
was made by the Roman Catholics to establish a mission 
at Dormilhouse. A priest went up from Les Ribes 
accompanied by a sister of mercy from Grap — "the 
pearl of the diocese," she was called — who hired a 
room for the purpose of commencing a school. To give 
eclat to their enterprise, the Archbishop of Embrun 
himself went up, clothed in a purple dress, riding a 
white horse, and accompanied by a party of men bear- 
ing a great red cross, which he caused to be set up at 
the entrance to the village. But when the archbishop 
appeared, not a single inhabitant went out to meet 

A A 



354 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



him ; they had all assembled in the church to hold a 
prayer-meeting, and it lasted during the whole period 
of his visit. All that he accomplished was to set up 
the great red cross, after which he went down the 
Tourniquet again ; and shortly after, the priest and 
the sister of mercy, finding they could not obtain a 
footing, also left the Tillage. Somehow or other, the 
red cross which had been set up mysteriously dis- 
appeared, but how it had been disposed of no one would 
ever reveal. It was lately proposed to commemorate 
the event of the archbishop's visit by the erection of an 
obelisk on the spot where he had set up the red cross ; 
and a tablet, with a suitable inscription, was provided 
for it by the Rev. Mr. Freemantle, of Clay don. But 
when he was told that the site was exposed to the full 
force of the avalanches descending from the upper part 
of the mountain in winter, and would speedily be swept 
away, the project of the memorial pillar was abandoned, 
and the tablet was inserted, instead, in the front wall 
of the village church, where it reads as follows : — 

A LA GLOIRE DE DIET! 
DONT DE EES TEMPS ANCIENS 
ET A T EATERS LE MARTYR DE LEERS PERES 
A MAINTENU 
A DORMILHOL'SE 
LA EOI DONNE AEX SAINTS 
ET LA CONNAISSANCE DE LA PAROLE 
LES HABITANTS ONT ELEYE 
CETTE PIERRE 
MDCCCLXIY. 

Having thus described the village and its history, a 
few words remain to be added as to the visit of our 
little party of travellers from Palons. On reaching the 
elevated point at which the archbishop had set up the 
red cross, the whole of the huts lay before us, and a 



D ORMILHO USE. 



355 



little way down the mountain- side we discerned the 
village church, distinguished by its little belfry. 
Leaving on our right the Swiss-looking chalet with 
overhanging roof, in which Tsfeff used to lodge with 
the Baridon- Verdure family while at Dormilhouse, and 
now known as " Felix NefFs house," we made our way 
down a steep and stony footpath towards the school- 
house adjoining the church, in front of which we found 
the large ash trees, shading both church and school, 
which JSTeff himself had planted. Arrived at the school- 
house, we there found shelter and accommodation for 
the night. The schoolroom, fitted with its forms and 
desks, was our parlour, and our bedrooms, furnished 
with the blankets we had brought with us, were in the 
little chambers adjoining. 

At eight in the evening the church bell rang for 
service — the summoning bell. The people had been 
expecting the visit,, and turned out in full force, so 
that at nine o'clock, when the last bell rang, the church 
was found filled to the door. Every seat was occupied 
— by men on one side, and by women on the other. 
The service was conducted by Mr. Milsom, the mis- 
sionary visitor from Lyons, who opened with prayer, 
then gave out the twenty-third Psalm, which was sung 
to an accompaniment on the harmonium ; then another 
prayer, followed by the reading of a chapter in the 
New Testament, was wound up by an address, in 
which the speaker urged the people to their continu- 
ance in well-doing. In the course of his remarks he 
said : " Be not discouraged because the results of your 
labours may appear but small. Work on and faint 
not, and God will give the spiritual increase. Pastors^ 
teachers, and colporteurs are too often ready to despond, 
because the fruit does not seem to ripen while they are 



35 6 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



watching it. But the best fruit grows slowly. Think 
how the Apostles laboured. They were all poor men, 
but men of brave hearts ; and they passed away to 
their rest long before the seed which they planted grew 
up and ripened to perfection. Work on then in 
patience and hope, and be assured that God will at 
length help you." 

Mr. Milsom's address was followed by another from 
the pastor, and then by a final prayer and hymn, after 
which the service was concluded, and the villagers 
dispersed to their respective homes a little after ten 
o'clock. The snow had ceased falling, but the sky was 
still overcast, and the night felt cold and raw, like 
February rather than July. 

The wonder is, that this community of Dormilhouse 
should cling to their mountain eyrie so long after the 
necessity for their living above the clouds has ceased ; 
but it is their home, and they have come to love it, and 
are satisfied to live and die there. Rather than live 
elsewhere, they will walk, as some of them do, twelve 
miles in the early morning, to their work down in the 
valley of the Durance, and twelve miles home again, 
in the evenings, to their perch on the rocks at Dormil- 
house. 

They are even proud of their mountain home, and 
would not change it for the most smiling vineyard of 
the plains. They are Like a little mountain clan — all 
Baridons, or Michels, or Orcieres, or Bertholons, or 
Arnouds — proud of their descent from the ancient 
Vaudois. It is their boast that a Roman Catholic does 
not live among them. Once, when a young shepherd 
came up from the valley to pasture his flock in the 
mountains, he fell in love with a maiden of the 
village, and proposed to marry her. " Yes," was the 



RETURN TO PALONS. 



357 



answer, with this condition, that he joined the Vaudois 
Church. And he assented, married the girl, and set 
tied for life at Dormilhouse.* 

The next morning broke clear and bright overhead. 
The sun shone along the rugged face of the Grramusac 
right over against the hamlet, bringing out its bolder 
prominences. Far below, the fleecy clouds were still 
rolling themselves up the mountain -sides, or gradually 
dispersing as the sun caught them on their emerging 
from the valley below. The view was bold and striking, 
displaying the grandeur of the scenery of Dormilhouse 
in one of its best aspects. 

Setting out on the return journey to Palons, we 
descended the face of the mountain on which Dormil- 
house stands, by a steep footpath right in front of it, 
down towards the falls of the Biasse. Looking back, 
the whole village appeared above us, cottage over 
cottage, and ledge over ledge, with its stern back- 
ground of rocky mountain. 

Immediately under the village, in a hollow between 
two shoulders of rock, the cascade of the Biasse leaps 
down into the valley. The highest leap falls in a jet 
of about a hundred feet, and the lower, divided into two 
by a projecting ledge, breaks into a shower of spray 
which falls about a hundred and fifty feet more into 
the abyss below. Even in Switzerland this fall would 

* Since the date of our visit, we learn that a sad accident — strik- 
ingly illustrative of the perils of village life at Dormilhouse — has 
befallen this young shepherd, by name Jean Joseph Lagier. One day 
in October, 1869, "while engaged in gathering wood near the brink of 
the precipice overhanging Minsals, he accidently fell over and was 
killed on the spot, leaving behind him a widow and a large family. 
He was a person of such excellent character and conduct, that he had 
been selected as colporteur for the neighbourhood. 



358 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



be considered a fine object ; but in this out-of-the-way 
place, it is rarely seen except by the villagers, who 
have water and cascades more than enough. 

We were told on the spot, that some eighty years 
since an avalanche shot down the mountain immediately 
on to the plateau on which we stood, carrying with it 
nearly half the village of Dormilhouse ; and every year 
the avalanches shoot down at the same place, which is 
strewn with the boulders and debris that extend far 
down into the valley. 

At the bottom of the Tourniquet we joined M. 
Charpiot, accompanying the donkey laden with the 
blankets and knapsacks, and proceeded with him on 
our way down the valley towards his hospitable 
parsonage at Palons. 



CHAPTER Y. 



GUILLESTRE AND THE VALLEY OF QTJEYRAS. 

WE left Palons on a sharp, bright morning in July, 
with the prospect of a fine day before us, though 
there had been a fall of snow in the night, which 
whitened the tops of the neighbouring hills. Follow- 
ing the road along the heights on the right bank of 
the Biasse, and passing the hamlet of Chancellas, 
another favourite station of NefFs, a rapid descent led 
us down into the valley of the Durance, which we 
crossed a little above the village of St. Crepin, with the 
strong fortress of Mont Dauphin before us a few miles 
lower down- the valley. 

This remote corner in the mountains was the scene 
of much fighting in early times between the Roman 
Catholics and the Huguenots, and afterwards between 
the French and the Piedmontese. It was in this 
neighbourhood that Lesdiguieres first gave evidence of 
his skill and valour as a soldier. The massacre of St. 
Bartholomew at Paris in 1572 had been followed by 
like massacres in various parts of France, especially in 
the south. The Roman Catholics of Dauphiny, deem- 
ing the opportunity favourable for the extirpation of 
the heretical Yaudois, dispatched the military com- 
mandant of Embrun against the inhabitants of Yal 



3 6o THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



Fressinieres at the head of an army of twelve hundred 
men. Lesdiguieres, then scarce twenty-four years old, 
being informed of their march, hastily assembled a 
Huguenot force in the valley of the Drac, and, crossing 
the Col d'Orcieres from Champsaur into the valley of the 
Durance, he suddenly fell upon the enemy at St. Crepin, 
routed them, and drove them down the valley to 
Embrun. Twelve years later, during the wars of the 
League, Lesdiguieres distinguished himself in the 
same neighbourhood, capturing Embrun, Guillestre, 
and Chateau Queyras, in the valley of the Guil, thereby 
securing the entire province for his royal master, 
Henry of Navarre. 

The strong fortress of Mont Dauphin, at the junction 
of the Guil with the Durance, was not constructed 
until a century later. Victor- Amadeus II., when 
invading the province with a Piedmontese army, at 
sight of the plateau commanding the entrance of both 
valleys, exclaimed, " There is a pass to fortify." The 
hint was not neglected by the French general, Catinat, 
under whose directions the great engineer, Yauban, 
traced the plan of the present fortifications. It is a 
very strong place, completely commanding the valley 
of the Durance, while it is regarded as the key of 
the passage into Italy by the Guil and the Col de la 
Croix. 

Guillestre is a small old-fashioned town, situated on 
the lowest slope of the pine-clad mountain, the Tete de 
Quigoulet, at the junction of the Eioubel and the 
Chagne, rivulets in summer but torrents in winter, 
which join the Guil a little below the town. Guillestre 
was in ancient times a strong place, and had for its 
lords the Archbishops of Embrun, the ancient perse- 
cutors of the Yaudois. The castle of the archbishop, 



GUILLESTRE. 



361 



flanked by six towers, occupied a commanding site 
immediately overlooking the town ; but at the French 
Revolution of 1789, the first thing which the arch- 
bishop's flock did was to pull his castle in pieces, 
leaving not one stone upon another ; and, strange to 
say, the only walled enclosure now within its pre- 
cincts is the little burying-ground of the Guillestre 
Protestants. One memorable stone has, however, been 
preserved, the stone trough in which the peasants were 
required to measure the tribute of grain payable by 
them to their reverend seigneurs. It is still to be 
seen laid against a wall in an open space in front of the 
church. 

It happened that the fair of Guillestre, which is held 
every two months, was afoot at the time of our visit. 
It is frequented by the people of the adjoining valleys, 
of which Guillestre is the centre, as well as by Pied- 
montese from beyond the Italian frontier. On the 
principal day of the fair we found the streets filled 
with peasants buying and selling beasts. They were 
apparently of many races. Amongst them were many 
well-grown men, some with rings in their ears — horse- 
dealers from Piedmont, we were told ; but the greater 
number were little, dark, thin, and poorly-fed peasants. 
Some of them, dark- eyed and tawny- skinned, looked 
like Arabs, possibly descendants of the Saracens who 
once occupied the province. There were one or two 
groups of gipsies, differing from all else ; but the 
district is too poor to be much frequented by people of 
that race. 

The animals brought for sale showed the limited 
resources of the neighbourhood. One hill- woman came 
along dragging two goats in milk ; another led a sheep 
and a goat ; a third a donkey in foal ; a fourth a cow in 



362 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



milk ; and so on. The largest lot consisted of about 
forty lambs, of various sizes and breeds, wbicb had 
been driven down from the cool air of the mountains, 
and, gasping with heat, were cooling their heads 
against the shady side of a stone wall. There were 
several lots of pigs, of a bad but probably hardy sort — 
mostly black, round-backed, long-legged, and long- 
<?ared. In selling the animals, there was the usual 
chaffering, in shrill patois, at the top of the voice — the 
seller of some poor scraggy beast extolling its merits, 
the intending buyer running it down as a " miserable 
bossu," &c, and disputing every point raised in its 
behalf, until the contest of words rose to such a height — 
men, women, and even children, on both sides, taking 
part in it — that the bystander would have thought 
it impossible they could separate without a fight. 
But matters always came to a peaceable conclusion, for 
the French are by no means a quarrelsome people. 

There were also various other sorts of produce offered 
for sale — wool, undressed sheepskins, sticks for firewood, 
onions and vegetable produce, and considerable quanti- 
ties of honeycomb ; while the sellers of scythes, whet- 
stones, caps, and articles of dress, seemed to meet with 
a ready sale for their wares, arranged on stalls in the 
open space in front of the church. Altogether, the 
queer collection of beasts and their drivers, who were 
to be seen drinking together greedily and promiscuously 
from the fountains in the market-place ; the steep 
streets, crowded with lean goats and cows and pigs, 
and their buyers and sellers ; the braying of donkeys 
and the shrieking of chafferers, with here and there a 
goitred dwarf of hideous aspect, presented a picture of 
an Alpine mountain fair, which, once seen, is not 
readily forgotten. 



GUILLESTRE. 



363 



There is a similar fair held at the village of La 
Bessie, before mentioned, a little higher up the 
Durance, on the road to Brianeon ; but it is held only 
once a year, dt the end of October, when the inhabit- 
ants of DormiU10n.se come down in a body to lay in 
their stock of necessaries for the winter. " There then 
arrives," says M. Albert, " a caravan of about the most 
singular character that can be imagined. It consists 
of nearly the whole population of the mountain hamlet, 
who resort thither to supply themselves with the 
articles required for family use during the winter, 
such as leather, lint, salt, and oil. These poor 
mountaineers are provided with very little money, 
and, to procure the necessary commodities, they 
have recourse to barter, the most ancient and primi- 
tive method of conducting trade. Hence they bring 
with them rye, barley, pigs, lambs, chamois skins 
and horns, and the produce of their knitting during 
the past year, to exchange for the required articles, 
with which they set out homeward, laden as they 
had come." 

The same circumstances which have concurred in 
making Guillestre the seat of the principal fair of the 
valleys, led Felix ISTeff to regard it as an important 
centre of missionary operations amongst the Taudois. 
In nearly all the mountain villages in its neighbour- 
hood descendants of the ancient Taudois are to be 
found, sometimes in the most remote and inaccessible 
places, whither they had fled in the times of the perse- 
cutions. Thus at Tars, a mountain hamlet up the 
torrent Eioubel, about nine miles from Guillestre, 
there is a little Christian community, which, though 
under the necessity of long concealing their faith, 



364 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



never ceased to be Yaudois in spirit.* Then, up the 
valley of the Guil, and in the lateral valleys which join 
it, there are, in some places close to the mountain 
barrier which divides France from Italy, other villages 
and hamlets, such as Arvieux, San Yeran, Fongilarde, 
&c, the inhabitants of which, though they concealed 
their faith, subsequent to the Revocation of the Edict of 
^Nantes, never conformed to Roman Catholicism, but took 
the earliest opportunity of declaring themselves openly 
so soon as the dark period of persecution had passed by. 

The people of these scattered and distant hamlets 
were, however, too poor to supply themselves with 
religious instructors, and they long remained in a state 
of spiritual destitution. Felix NefFs labours were too 
short, and scattered over too extensive a field, to pro- 
duce much permanent effect. Besides, they were 
principally confined to the village of Dormilhouse, 
which, as being the most destitute, had, he thought, 
the greatest claim upon his help ; and at his death 
comparatively little had been done or attempted in the 
Guillestre district. But he left behind him what was 
worth more than any endowment of money, a noble 
example, which still lives, and inspires the labourers 
who have come after him. 

* The well-known Alpine missionary, J. L. Eostan, of whom an 
interesting biography has recently been published by the Eev. A. J. 
French, for the Wesleyan Conference, was a native of Yars. He was 
one of the favourite pupils of Felix Neff, with whom he resided at 
Dormilhouse in 1825-7 ; Neff saying of him : " Among the best of my 
pupils, as regards spiritual things and secular too, is Jean Eostan, of 
Vars : he is probably destined for the ministry ; such at least is my 
hope." Neff bequeathed to him the charge of his parish during his 
temporary absence, but he never returned ; and shortly after, Eostan 
left, to pursue his studies at Montauban. He joined the Methodist 
Church, settled and ministered for a time in La Vaunage and the 
Cevennes, afterwards labouring as a missionary in the High Alps, 
and eventually settled as minister of the church at Lisieux, Jersey, in 
charge of which he died, July, 1859. 



GUILLESTRE. 



365 



It was not until within the last twenty years that a 
few Yaudois families of Gruillestre began to meet 
together for religious purposes, which they did at first 
in the upper chamber of an inn. There the Rev. Mr. 
Freemantle found them when paying his first visit to 
the valleys in 1851. He was rejoiced to see the zeal of 
the people, holding to their faith in the face of con- 
siderable opposition and opprobrium ; and he exerted 
himself to raise the requisite funds amongst his friends 
in England to provide the Guillestre Yaudois with a 
place of worship of their own. His efforts were 
attended with success; and in 1854 a comfortable 
parsonage, with a commodious room for public worship, 
was purchased for their use. A fund was also provided 
for the maintenance of a settled ministry ; a pastor was 
appointed ; and in 1857 a congregation of from forty 
to seventy persons attended worship every Sunday. 
Mr. Freemantle, in a communication with which he 
has favoured us, says : " Our object has not been to 
make an aggression upon the Roman Catholics, but to 
strengthen the hands and establish the faith of the 
Yaudois. And in so doing we have found, not un- 
frequently, that when an interest has been excited 
among the Roman Catholic population of the district, 
there has been some family or hereditary connection 
with ancestors who were independent of the see of 
Rome, and such have again joined themselves to the 
faith of their fathers." 

The new movement was not, however, allowed to 
proceed without great opposition. The " Momiers," 
or mummers — the modern nickname of the Yaudois — 
were denounced by the cure of the place, and the people 
were cautioned, as they valued their souls' safety, 
against giving any countenance to their proceedings. 



366 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



The cure was doubtless seriously impressed by the 
gravity of the situation ; and to protect the parish 
against the assaults of the evil one, he had a large num- 
ber of crosses erected upon the heights overlooking the 
town. On one occasion he had a bad dream, in which 
he beheld the valley filled with a vast assembly come to 
be judged ; and on the site of the judgment-seat which 
he saw in his dream, he set up, on the summit of the Come 
Chauve, a large tin cross hearted with wood. We were 
standing in the garden in front of the parsonage at 
Guillestre late in the evening, when M. Schell, the 
pastor, pointirsg up to the height, said, " There you see 
it now ; that is the cure's erection." The valley below 
lay in deep shadow, while the cross upon the summit 
brightly reflected the last rays of the setting sun. 

The cure, finding that the " Momiers " did not cease 
to exist, next adopted the expedient of preaching them 
down. On the occasion of the Fete Napoleon, 1862, 
when the Rev. Mr. Freemantle visited Gfuillestre for 
the purpose of being present at the Yaudois services on 
Sunday, the 10th of August, the cure preached a special 
sermon to his congregation at early morning mass, 
telling them that an Englishman had come into the 
town with millions of francs to buy up the souls of 
Guillestre, and warning them to abstain from such 
men. 

The people were immediately filled with curiosity to 
know what it was that this stranger had come all the 
way from England to do, backed by "millions of 
francs." Many of them did not as yet know that there 
was such a thing as a Yaudois church in Guillestre ; but 
now that they did know, they were desirous of ascer- 
taining something about the doctrines taught there. 
The consequence was, that a crowd of people — amongst 



G UILLESTRE. 



367 



whoni were some of tlie highest authorities in tie town, 
the registrar, the douaniers, the chief of a neighbouring 
commune, and persons of all classes — assembled at Loon 
to hear ]M. de Faye, the Protestant pastor, who preached 
to them an excellent sermon under the trees of the 
parsonage orchard, while a still larger number attended 
in the afternoon. 

TVhen the cure heard of the conduct of his flock he 
was greatly annoyed. " What did you hear from the 
heretics p" he asked of one of the delinquents. " I heard 
your sermon in the morning, and a sermon upon charity 
in the afternoon," was the reply. 

Great were the surprise and excitement in Gruillestre 
when it became known that the principal sergeant of 
gendarmerie — the very embodiment of law and order 
in the place — had gone over and joined the " Momiers" 
with his wife and family. M. Laugier was quite a 
model gendarme. He was a man of excellent character, 
steady, sensible, and patient, a diligent self-improver, 
a reader of books, a botanist, and a bit of a geologist. He 
knew all the rare mountain plants, and had a collection 
of those that would bear transplantation, in his garden 
at the back of the town, ~No man was more respected 
in Gruillestre than the sergeant. His long and faithful 
service entitled him to the medaille militaire, and it 
would have been awarded to him, but for the circum- 
stance which came to light, and which he did not seek 
to conceal, that he had joined the Protestant connexion. 
Not only was the medal withheld, but influence was 
used to get him sent away from the place ; and he was 
packed off to a station in the mountains at Chateau 
Queyras. 

Though this banishment from Guillestre was intended 
as a punishment, it only served to bring out the sterling 



3 68 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



qualities of the sergeant, and to ensure his eventual 
reward. It so happened that the station at Chateau 
Queyras commanded the approaches into an extensive 
range of mountain pasturage. Although not required 
specially to attend to their safety, our sergeant had 
nevertheless carefully noted the flocks and herds as 
they went up the valleys in the spring. When winter 
approached, they were all brought down again from 
the mountains for safety. 

The winter of that year set in early and severely. 
The sergeant, making his observations on the flocks as 
they passed down the valley, noted that one large flock 
of about three thousand sheep had not yet made its ap- 
pearance. The mountains were now covered with snow, 
and he apprehended that the sheep and their shepherds 
had been storm-stayed. Summoning to his assistance a 
body of men, he set out at their head in search of the 
lost flock. After a long, laborious, and dangerous 
journey — for the snow by this time lay deep in the 
hollows of the hills — he succeeded in discovering the 
shepherds and the sheep, almost reduced to their last 
gasp — the sheep, for want of food, actually gnawing 
each other's tails. With great difficulty the whole 
were extricated from their perilous position, and 
brought down the mountains in safety. 

JSTo representation was made to head- quarters by the 
authorities of Guillestre of the conduct of the Protestant 
sergeant in the matter ; but when the shepherds got 
down to Gap, they were so full of the sergeant's 
praises, and of his bravery in rescuing them and their 
flock from certain death, that a paragraph descriptive 
of the affair was inserted in the local papers, and was 
eventually copied into the Parisian journals. Then it 
was that an inquiry was made into his conduct, and the 



G UILLESTRE CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 369 



result was so satisfactory that the sergeant was at once 
decorated not only with the medaitte militaire, but with 
the medaille de sauvetage — a still higher honour ; and, 
shortly after, he was allowed to retire from the service 
on full pay. He then returned to his home and family 
at Guillestre, where he now officiates as Regent of the 
Yaudois church, reading the prayers and conducting 
the service in the absence of the stated minister. 

We spent a Sunday in the comfortable parsonage at 
Gruillestre. There was divine service in the temple at 
half-past ten a.m., conducted by the regular pastor, M. 
Schell, and instruction and catechizing of the children 
in the afternoon. The pastor's regular work consists 
of two services at Guillestre and Vars on alternate 
Sundays, with Sunday-school and singing lesson ; and 
on week days he gives religious instruction in the 
Guillestre school. The missionary's wife is a true 
"helpmeet," and having been trained as a deaconess 
at Strasbourg, she regularly visits the poor, occasionally 
assisting them with medical advice. 

Another important part of the work at Guillestre is 
the girls' school, for which suitable premises have been 
taken ; and it is conducted by an excellent female 
teacher. Here not only the usual branches of education 
are taught, but domestic industry of different kinds. 
Through the instrumentality of Mr. Milsom, glove- 
sewing has been taught to the girls, and it is hoped 
that by this and similar efforts this branch of home 
manufacture may become introduced in the High Alps, 
and furnish profitable employment to many poor per- 
sons during their long and dreary winter. 

By the aid of a special fund, a few girl boarders, 
belonging to scattered Protestant families who have no 

B B 



3 7 o THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



other means for the education of their children, are also 
received at the school. The girls seem to be extremely 
well taken care of, and the house, which we went over, 
is a very pattern of cleanliness and comfort. 

The route from Guillestre into Italy lies up the 
valley of the Guil, through one of the wildest and 
deepest gorges, or rather chasms, to be found in Europe. 
Brockedon says it is " one of the finest in the Alps." 
M. Bost compares it to the Moutier-Grand-Yal, in the 
canton of Berne, but says it is much wilder. He even 
calls it frightful, which it is not, except in rainy weather, 
when the rocks occasionally fall from overhead. At such 
times people avoid travelling through the gorge. M. 
Bost also likens it to the Via Mala, though here the 
road, at the narrowest and most precipitous parts, runs 
in the bottom of the gorge, in a ledge cut in the rock, 
there being room only for the river and the road. It 
is only of late years that the road has been completed, 
and it is often partly washed away in winter, or covered 
with rock and stones brought down by the torrent. 
When Neff travelled the gorge, it was passable only on 
foot, or on muleback. Yet light-footed armies have 
passed into Italy by this route. Lesdiguieres clam- 
bered over the mountains and along the Guil to reach 
Chateau Queyras, which he assaulted and took. Louis 
XIII. once accompanied a French army about a league 
up the gorge, but he turned back, afraid to go farther ; 
and the hamlet at which his progress was arrested is 
still called Maison du Eoi. About three leagues higher 
up, after crossing the Guil from bank to bank several 
times, in order to make use of such ledges of the rock 
as are suitable for the road, the gorge opens into the 
Combe du Queyras, and very shortly the picturesque- 



CHATEAU QUEYRAS. 



37 1 



looking Castle of Queyras comes in sight, occupying 
the summit of a lofty conical rock in the middle of the 
valley. 

As we approached Chateau Queyras the ruins of a 
building were pointed out by Mr. Milsom in the bottom 
of the valley, close by the river-side. " That," said he, 
" was once the Protestant temple of the place. It was 
burnt to the ground at the Revocation. You see that 
old elm-tree growing near it. That tree was at the 
same time burnt to a black stump. It became a saying 
in the valley that Protestantism was as dead as that 
stump, and that it would only reappear when that dead 
stump came to life ! And, strange to say, since Felix 
Neff has been here, the stump has come to life — you see 
how green it is — and again Protestantism is like the elm- 
tree, sending out its vigorous offshoots in the valley." 

Chateau Queyras stands in the centre of the valley of 
the Guil, which is joined near this point by two other 
valleys, the Combe of Arvieux joining it on the right 
bank, and that of San Veran on the left. The heads of 
the streams which traverse these valleys have their 
origin in the snowy range of the Cottian Alps, which 
form the boundary between France and Italy. As in 
the case of the descendants of the ancient Yaudois at 
Dormilhouse, they are here also found at the farthest 
limit of vegetation, penetrating almost to the edge of 
the glacier, where they were least likely to be molested. 
The inhabitants of Arvieux were formerly almost 
entirely Protestant, and had a temple there, which was 
pulled down at the Revocation. From that time down 
to the Revolution they worshipped only in secret, 
occasionally ministered to by Yaudois pastors, who made 
precarious visits to them from the Italian valleys at the 
risk of their lives. 



372 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUD01S. 



Above Arvieux is the hamlet of La Chalp, containing 
a considerable number of Protestants, and where Neff 
had his home — a small, low cottage ^indistinguishable 
from the others save by its whitewashed front. Its 
situation is cheerful, facing the south, and commanding 
a pleasant mountain prospect, contrasting strongly with 
the barren outlook and dismal hovels of Dormilhouse. 
But ~NeS never could regard the place as his home. 
" The inhabitants," he observed in his journal, "have 
more traffic, and the mildness of the climate appears 
somehow or other not favourable to the growth of piety. 
They are zealous Protestants, and show me a thousand 
attentions, but they are at present absolutely im- 
penetrable." The members of the congregation at 
Arvieux, indeed, complained of his spending so little of 
his time among them ; but the comfort of his cottage at 
La Chalp, and the comparative mildness of the climate 
of Arvieux, were insufficient to attract him from the 
barren crags but warm hearts of Dormilhouse. 

The village of San Yeran, which lies up among the 
moimtains some twelve miles to the east of Arvieux, on 
the opposite side of the Yal Queyras, was another 
of the refuges of the ancient Yaudois. It is at the foot 
of the snowy ridge which divides France from Italy. 
Dr. Grilly says, " There is nothing fit for mortal to take 
refuse in between San Yeran and the eternal snows 
which mantle the pinnacles of Monte Yiso." The village 
is 6,692 feet above the level of the sea, and there 
is a provincial saying that San Yeran is the highest 
spot in Europe where bread is eaten. Felix JNeff said, 
"It is the highest, and consequently the most pious, 
in the valley of Queyras." Dr. Grilly was the second 
Englishman who had ever found his way to the place, 
and he was accompanied on the occasion by Urs. Gill}*. 



NEFF'S CHARGE. 



373 



" The sight of a female," he says, " dressed entirely 
in linen, was % phenomenon so new to those simple 
peasants, whose garments are never anything but 
woollen, that Pizarro and his mail-clad companions 
were not greater objects of curiosity to the Peruvians 
than we were to these mountaineers." 

Not far distant from San Yeran are the mountain 
hamlets of Pierre Grosse and Fon-gillarde, also 
ancient retreats of the persecuted Yaudois, and now for 
the most part inhabited by Protestants. The remote- 
ness and comparative inaccessibility of these mountain 
hamlets may be inferred from the fact that in 1786, 
when the Protestants of France were for the first 
time since the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
permitted to worship in public without molestation, 
four years elapsed before the intelligence reached San 
Yeran. 

We have now reached almost the extreme limits of 
France ; Italy lying on the other side of the snowy 
peaks which shut in the upper valleys of the Alps. In 
NefFs time the parish of which he had charge ex- 
tended from San Yeran, on the frontier, to Champsaur, 
in the valley of the Drac, a distance of nearly eighty 
miles. His charge consisted of the scattered popula- 
tion of many mountain hamlets, to visit which in suc- 
cession involved his travelling a total distance of not 
less than one hundred and eighty miles. It was, of 
course, impossible that any single man, no matter how 
inspired by zeal and devotion, could do justice to a 
charge so extensive. The difficulties of passing through 
a country so wild and rugged were also very great, 
especially in winter. Neff records that on one occasion 
he took six hours to make the journey, in the midst of 
a snow-storm which completely hid the footpath, from 



3/4 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



his .cottage at La Chalp to San Veran, a distance of 
only twelve miles. 

The pastors who succeeded Neff had the same diffi- 
culties to encounter, and there were few to be found 
who could brave them. The want of proper domestic 
accommodation for the pastors was also felt to be a 
great hindrance. Accordingly, one of the first things 
to which the Rev. Mr. Freemantle directed his atten- 
tion, when he entered upon his noble work of supplying 
the spiritual destitution of the French Yaudois, was to 
take steps not only to supply the poor people with more 
commodious temples, but also to provide dwelling- 
houses for the pastors. And in the course of a few 
years, helped by friends in England, he has been 
enabled really to accomplish a very great deal. The 
extensive parish of Neff is now divided into five sub- 
parishes — that of Fressinieres, which includes Palons, 
Violins, and Dormilhouse, provided with three temples, 
a parsonage, and schools ; Arvieux, with the hamlets 
of Brunissard (where worship was formerly conducted 
in a stable) and La Chalp, provided with two temples, 
a parsonage, and schools ; San Veran, with Fongillarde 
and Pierre Grosse, provided with three temples, a 
parsonage, and a school; St. Laurent du Cros and 
Champsaur, in the valley of the Drac, provided with a 
temple, school, &c, principally through the liberality 
of Lord Monson ; and Guillestre and Yars, provided 
with two temples, a parsonage, and a girls' school. A 
■temple, with a residence for a pastor, has also of late 
years been provided at Briancon, with a meeting-place 
also at the village of Villeneuve. 

Such are the agencies now at work in the district of 
the High Alps, helped on by a few zealous workers 
in England and abroad. While the object of the 



ABRIES. 



375 



pastors, in the words of Mr. Freemantle, is "not to 
regard themselves as missionaries to proselytize Roman 
Catholics, but as ministers residing among their own 
people, whose faith, and love, and holiness they have 
to promote," they also endeavour to institute measures 
with the object of improving the social and domestic 
condition of the Yaudois. Thus, in one district — that 
of St. Laurent du Cros — a banque de prevoyance, or 
savings-bank, has been established ; and though it was 
at first regarded with suspicion, it has gradually made 
its way and proved of great value, being made use of 
by the indigent Roman Catholics as well as Protestant 
families of the district. Such efforts and such agencies 
as these cannot fail to be followed by blessings, and to 
be greatly instrumental for good. 

Our last night in France was spent in the miserable 
little town of Abries, situated immediately at the foot 
of the Alpine ridge which separates France from Italy. 
On reaching the principal hotel, or rather auberge, we 
found every bed taken ; but a peep into the dark and 
dirty kitchen, which forms the entrance-hall of the 
place, made us almost glad that there was no room for 
us in that inn. We turned out into the wet streets to 
find a better ; but though we succeeded in finding beds 
in a poor house in a back lane, little can be said in their 
praise. We were, however, supplied with a tolerable 
dinner, and contrived to pass the night in rest, and to 
start refreshed early on the following morning on our 
way to the Yaudois valleys of Piedmont. 



VALLEY OF LUSERNE 



JImIS^ PlS> MnJ n 9 r0 S n 8' U^ampl Rosette iSComha, «JHa«^# «- Hf*WftW 





• ~-a . 



WiTarebl 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE VALLEY OF THE PELICE LA TOL'R ANGROGNA— - 

THE PRA DU TOUR. 

HHHE village of Abries is situated close to the Alpine 
ridge, the summit of which marks the boundary 
between France and Italy. On the other side lie the 
valleys of Piedmont, in which the French Vaudois were 
accustomed to take refuge when persecution ravaged 
their own valleys, passing by the mountain-road we 
were now about to travel, as far as La Tour, in the 
valley of the Pelice. 

Although there are occasional villages along the 
route, there is no good resting-place for travellers short 
of La Tour, some twenty- six miles distant from Abries ; 
and as it was necessary that we should walk the 
distance, the greater part of the road being merely a 
track, scarcely practicable for mules, we were up be- 
times in the morning, and on our way. The sun had 



THE VALLEY OF THE PELLCE. 



scarcely risen above the horizon. The mist was still 
hanging along the mountain -sides, and the stillness of 
the scene was only broken by the murmur of the Guil 
running in its rocky bed below. Passing through the 
hamlet of Monta, where the French douane has its last 
frontier station, we began the ascent ; and soon, as the 
sun rose and the mists cleared away, we saw the profile 
of the mountain up which we were climbing cast boldly 
upon the range behind us on the further side of the 
valley. A little beyond the ravine of the Combe de la 
Croix, along the summit of which the road winds, we 
reached the last house within the French frontier — a 
hospice, not very inviting in appearance, for the accom- 
modation of travellers. A little further is the Col, and 
passing a stone block carved with the fleur-de-lis and 
cross of Savoy, we crossed the frontier of France and 
entered Italy. 

On turning a shoulder of the mountain, we looked 
down upon the head of the valley of the Pelice, a grand 
and savage scene. The majestic, snow-capped Monte 
Yiso towers up on the right, at the head of the valley, 
amidst an assemblage of other great mountain masses. 
From its foot seems to steal the river Pelice, now a 
quiet rivulet, though in winter a raging torrent. 
Eight in front, lower down the valley, is the rocky 
defile of Mirabouc, a singularly savage gorge, seemingly 
rent asunder by some tremendous convulsion of nature ; 
beyond and over which extends the valley of the Pelice, 
expanding into that of the Po, and in the remote 
distance the plains of Piedmont ; while immediately 
beneath our feet, as it were, but far below, lies a con- 
siderable breadth of green pasture, the Bergerie of Pra, 
enclosed on all sides by the mountains over which we 
look. 



378 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



The descent from the Col down into the Pra is very 
difficult, in some places almost precipitous — far more 
abrupt than on the French side, where the incline up 
to the summit is comparatively easy. 

The zigzag descends from one rock to another, along 
the face of a shelving slope, by a succession of notches 
(from which the footpath is not inappropriately termed 
La Coche) affording a very insecure footing for the 
few mules which occasionally cross the pass. Dr. 
Gilly crossed here from La Tour with Mrs. Gilly in 
1829, when about to visit the French valleys ; but he 
found the path so difficult and dangerous, that the lady 
had to walk nearly the whole way. 

As we descended the mountain almost by a succession 
of leaps, we overtook M. Gariod, deputy judge of Gap, 
engaged in botanizing among the rocks ; and he in- 
formed us that among the rarer specimens he had col- 
lected in the course of his journey on the summit were 
the Polygonum alpinum and Silene vallesia, above Monta ; 
the Leucanthemum alpinum, near the Hospice ; the 
Linaria alpina and Cirsium spinosissimus on the Col ; 
while the Lloydia serotina, Arabis alpina, Phyteuma 
hemisphericum, and Rhododendrum ferrugineum, were 
found all over the face of the rocky descent to the Pra. 

At the foot of the Coche we arrived at the first house 
in Italy, the little auberge of the Pra, a great resort of 
sportsmen, who come to hunt the chamois in the adjoin- 
ing mountains during the season. Here is also the 
usual customs station, with a few officers of the Italian 
douane, to watch the passage of merchandise across 
the frontier. 

The road from hence to la Tour is along the river 
Pelice, which is kept in sight nearly the whole way. 
A little below the Pra, where it enters the defile of 



THE VALLEY OF THE FELICE. 



Mirabouc, the path merely follows what is the bed of 
the torrent in winter. The descent is down ledges and 
notches, from rock to rock, with rugged precipices 
overhanging the ravine for nearly a mile. At its 
narrowest part stand the ruins of the ancient fort of 
Mirabouc, built against the steep escarpments of the 
mountain, which, in ancient times, completely com- 
manded and closed the defile against the passage of an 
enemy from that quarter. And difficult though the 
Col de la Croix is for the passage of an army, it has on 
more than one occasion been passed by French detach- 
ments in their invasion of Italy. 

It is not until we reach Bobi, or Bobbio, several miles 
lower down the Pelice, that we at last feel we are in 
Italy. Here the valley opens out, the scenery is soft 
and inviting, the fields are well tilled, the vegetation is 
rich, and the clusters of chestnut -trees in magnificent 
foliage. We now begin to see the striking difference 
between the French and the Italian valleys. The former 
are precipitous and sterile, constant falls of slaty rock 
blocking up the defiles ; while here the mountains lay 
aside their savage aspects, and are softened down into 
picturesquely wooded hills, green pastures, and fertile; 
fields stretching along the river- sides, yielding a rich 
territory for the plough. 

Yet, beautiful and peaceful though this valley of the 
Pelice now appears, there is scarcely a spot in it but 
has been consecrated by the blood of martyrs to the 
cause of liberty and religion. In the rugged defile of 
the Mirabouc, which we have just passed, is the site of 
a battle fought between the Piedmontese troops and the 
Yaudois peasants, at a place called tbe Pian-del-Mort, 
where the persecuted, turning up>n the persecutors, 
drove them back, and made good their retreat to their 



3 8o THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



mountain fastnesses. Bobi itself was the scene of many 
deadly struggles. A little above the Tillage, on a rocky 
plateau, are the remains of an ancient fort, near the 
hamlet of Sibaud, where the Yaudois performed one of 
their bravest exploits under Henri Arnaud, after their 
" Glorious Return M from exile, — near which, on a 
stone still pointed out, they swore fidelity to each other, 
and that they would die to the last man rather than 
a-bandon their country and their religion. 

Near Bobi is still to be seen a remarkable illustration 
of English interest long ago felt in the people of these 
valleys. This is the long embankment or breakwater, 
built by a grant from Oliver Cromwell, for the purpose 
of protecting the village against the inundations of the 
Pelice, by one of which it was nearly destroyed in the 
time of the Protectorate. It seems strange indeed that 
England should then have stretched out its hand so far, 
to help a people so poor and uninfluential as the 
Yaudois ; but their sufferings had excited the sym- 
pathies of all Europe, and of Protestant England in 
particular, which not only sent them sympathy, but 
substantial succour. Cromwell also, through the in- 
fluence of Cardinal Mazarin, compelled the Duke of 
Savoy to suspend for a time the persecution of his 
subjects, — though shortly after the Protector's death it 
waxed hotter than ever. 

All down the valley of the Pelice, we come upon 
village after village — La Piante, Yillar, and Cabriol — 
which have been the scenes sometimes of heroic combats, 
and sometimes of treacherous massacres. Yet all the 
cruelty of Griand Dukes and Popes during centuries did 
not avail in turning the people of the valley from their 
faith. For they continue to worship after the same 
primitive forms as ihey did a thousand years a#o ; and 



LA TOUR. 



in the principal villages and hamlets, though Romanism 
has long heen supported hy the power of the State and 
the patronage of the Church, the Protestant Vaudois 
continue to constitute the majority of the population. 

Rising up on the left of the road, between Yillar and 
La Tour, are seen the bold and almost perpendicular 
rocks of Castelluzzo, terminating in the tower-like 
summit which has given to them their name. On the 
face of these rocks is one of the caverns in which the 
Yaudois were accustomed to hide their women and 
children when they themselves were forced to take the 
field. When Dr. Grilly first endeavoured to discover 
this famous cavern in 1829, he could not find any one 
who could guide him to it. Tradition said it was half 
way down the perpendicular face of the rock, and it was 
known to be very difficult to reach ; but the doctor 
could not find any traces of it. Determined, however, 
not to be baffled, he made a second attempt a month 
later, and succeeded. He had to descend some fifty feet 
from the top of the cliff by a rope ladder, until a plat- 
form of rock was reached, from which the cavern was 
entered. It was found to consist of an irregular, rugged, 
sloping gallery in the face of the rock, of considerable 
extent, roofed in by a projecting crag. It is quite 
open to the south, but on all other sides it is secure ; 
and it can only be entered from above. Such were 
the places to which the people of the valleys were 
driven for shelter in the dark days so happily passed 
away. 

One of the best indications of the improved regime 
that now prevails, shortly presented itself in the hand- 
some Yaudois church, situated at the western entrance 
of the town of La Tour, near to which is the college for 
the education of Yaudois pastors, together with resi- 



382 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAVDOIS. 



dences for the clergy and professors. The founding of 
this establishment, as well as of the hospital for the 
poor and infirm Vaudois, is in a great measure due to 
the energetic zeal of the Dr. Gilly so often quoted 
above, whose writings on behalf of the faithful but 
destitute Protestants of the Piedmontese valleys, about 
forty years since, awakened an interest in their behalf 
in England, as well as in foreign countries, which has 
not yet subsided. 

More enthusiastic, if possible, even than Dr. Gilly, 
was the late General Beckwith, who followed up, with 
extraordinary energy, the work which the other had so 
well begun. The general was an old Peninsular veteran, 
who had followed the late Duke of Wellington through 
most of his campaigns, and lost a leg while serving 
under him at the battle of Waterloo. Hence the desig- 
nation of him by a Roman Catholic bishop in an article 
published by him in one of the Italian journals, as " the 
adventurer with the wooden leg." 

The general's attention was first attracted to the 
subject of the Vaudois in the following curiously acci- 
dental way. Being a regular visitor at Apsley House, 
he called on the Duke one morning, and, finding him 
engaged, he strolled into the library to spend an idle 
half-hour among the books. The first he took up was 
Dr. Gilly's u Narrative," and what he read excited so 
lively an interest in his mind that he went direct to his 
bookseller and ordered all the publications relative to 
the Vaudois Church that could be procured. 

The general's zeal being thus fired, he set out shortly 
after on a visit to the Piedmontese valleys. He re- 
turned to them again and again, and at length settled 
at La Tour, where he devoted the remainder of his life 
and a large portion of his fortune to the service of the 



LA TOUR. 



383 



Vaudois Church, and people. He organized a move- 
ment for the erection of schools, of which not fewer than 
one hundred and twenty were provided mainly through 
his instrumentality in different parts of the valleys, 
besides restoring and enlarging the collage at La Tour, 
erecting the present commodious dwellings for the pro- 
fessors, providing a superior school for the education 
of pastors' daughters, and contributing towards the 
erection of churches wherever churches were needed. 

The general was so zealous a missionary, so eager 
for the propagation of the Gospel, that some of his 
friends asked him why he did not preach to the people. 
" ETo," said he ; " men have their special gifts, and mine 
is a brick- and-mortar gift." The general was satisfied 
to go on as he had begun, helping to build schools, 
colleges, and churches for the Vaudois, wherever most 
needed. His crowning work was the erection of the 
grand block of buildings on the Yiale del Re at Turin, 
which not only includes a handsome and commodious 
Yaudois church, but an English church, and a Yaudois 
hospital and schools, erected at a cost of about fourteen 
thousand pounds, principally at the cost of the general 
himself, generously aided by Mr. Brewin and other 
English contributors. 

Nor were the people ungrateful to their benefactor. 
" Let the name of General Beckwith be blessed by all 
who pass this way," says an inscription placed upon 
one of the many schools opened through his efforts and 
generosity ; and the whole country responds to the 
sentiment. 

To return to La Tour. The style of the buildings at 
its western end — the church, college, residences, and 
adjoining cottages, with their pretty gardens in front, 
designed, as they have been, by English architects — 



38+ THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



give one the idea of the best part of an English town. 
But this disappears as you enter the town itself, and 
proceed through the principal street, which is long, 
narrow, and thoroughly Italian. The situation of the 
town is exceedingly fine, at the foot of the Yandalin 
Mountain, near the confluence of the river Angrogna 
with the Pelice. The surrounding scenery is charming ; 
and from the high grounds, north and south of the town, 
extensive views may be had in all directions — especially 
up the valley of the Pelice, and eastward over the plains 
of Piedmont — the whole country being, as it were, em- 
broidered with vineyards, corn-fields, and meadows, here 
and there shaded with groves and thickets, spread over 
a surface varied by hills, and knolls, and undulating 
slopes. 

The size, importance, industry, and central situation 
of La Tour have always caused it to be regarded as the 
capital of the valleys. One-half of the Yaudois popu- 
lation occupies the valley of the Pelice and the lateral 
valley of Angrogna ; the remainder, more widely scat- 
tered, occupying the valleys of Perouse and Pragela, 
and the lateral valley of St. Martin — the entire number 
of the Protestant population in the several valleys 
amounting to about twenty thousand. 

Although, as we have already said, there is scarcely 
a hamlet in the valleys but has been made famous by 
the resistance of its inhabitants in past times to the 
combined tyranny of the Popes of Pome and the Dukes 
of Savoy, perhaps the most interesting events of all have 
occurred in the neighbourhood of La Tour, but more 
especially in the valley of Angrogna, at whose entrance 
it stands. 

The wonder is, that a scattered community of half- 
armed peasantry, without resources, without magazines, 



THE VALLEY OF ANGROGNA. 385 

without fortresses, should have been able for any length 
of time to resist large bodies of regular troops — Italian, 
French, Spanish, and even Irish ! — led by the most 
experienced commanders of the day, and abundantly 
supplied with arms, cannon, ammunition, and stores of 
all kinds. All that the people had on their side — and 
it compensated for much — was a good cause, great 
bravery, and a perfect knowledge of the country in 
which, and for which, they fought. 

Though the Vaudois had no walled towns, their 
district was a natural fortress, every foot of which was 
known to them — every pass, every defile, every barri- 
cade, and every defensible position. Resistance in the 
open country, they knew, would be fatal to them. 
Accordingly, whenever assailed by their persecutors, 
they fled to their mountain strongholds, and there 
waited the attack of the enemy. 

One of the strongest of such places — the Thermopylae 
of the Yaudois — was the valley of Angrogna, up which 
the inhabitants of La Tour were accustomed to retreat 
on any sudden invasion by the army of Savoy. The 
valley is one of exquisite beauty, presenting a combi- 
nation of mingled picturesqueness and sublimity, the 
like of which is rarely to be seen. It is hemmed in by 
mountains, in some places rounded and majestic, in 
others jagged and abrupt. The sides of the valley are 
in many places finely wooded, while in others well- 
tilled fields, pastures, and vineyards slope down to the 
river-side. Orchards are succeeded by pine-woods, and 
these again by farms and gardens. Sometimes a little 
cascade leaps from a rock on its way to the valley 
below ; and little is heard around, save the rippling of 
water, and the occasional lowing of cattle in the pastures, 
mingled with the music of their bells. 

c c 



3 86 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



Shortly after entering thevalle}', we passed the scene 
of several terrible struggles between the Yaudois and 
their persecutors. One of the most famous spots is the 
plateau of Rochertialan, where the heights of St. John 
abut upon the mountains of Angrogna, It was shortly 
after the fulmination of a bull of extermination against 
the Yaudois by Pope Innocent VIII., in 1486, that an 
arm}' of eighteen thousand regular French and Pied- 
montese troops, accompanied by a horde of brigands to 
whom the remission of sins was promised on condition 
of their helping to slay the heretics, encircled the 
valleys and proceeded to assail the Yaudois in their 
fastnesses. The Papal legate, Albert Catanee, Arch- 
deacon of Cremona, had his head-quarters at Pignerol, 
from whence he superintended the execution of the 
Pope's orders. First, he sent preaching monks up the 
valleys to attempt the conversion of the Yaudois before 
attacking them with arms. But the peasantry refused 
to be converted, and fled to their strongholds in the 
mountains. 

Then Catanee took the field at the head of his army, 
advancing upon Angrogna. He extended his lines so 
as to enclose the entire body of heretics, with the object 
of cutting them off to a man. The Yaudois, however, 
defended themselves resolutely, though armed only with 
pikes, swords, and bows and arrows, and everywhere 
beat back the assailants. The severest struggle occurred 
at Eochemalan, which the crusaders attacked with great 
courage. But the Yaudois had the advantage of the 
higher ground, and, encouraged by the cries and prayers 
of the women, children, and old men whom they were 
defending, they impetuously rushed forward and drove 
the Papal troops down-hill in disorder, pursuing them 
into the very plain. 



BATTLE OF ROCHEMALAN. 387 



The next day the Papalini renewed the attack, 
ascending by the bottom of the valley, instead of by 
the plateau on which they had been defeated. But one 
of those dense mists, so common in the Alps, having 
settled down upon the valley, the troops became con- 
fused, broken up, and entangled in difficult paths ; and 
in this state, marching apprehensively, they were fallen 
upon by the Yaudois and again completely defeated. 
Many of the soldiers slid over the rocks and were 
drowned in the torrent, — the chasm into which the 
captain of the detachment (Saquet de Planghere) fell, 
being still known as Toumpi de Saquet, or Saquet' s 
Hole. 

The resistance of the mountaineers at other points, in 
the valleys of Pragela and St. Martin, having been 
almost equally successful, Catanee withdrew the Papal 
army in disgust, and marched it back into France, to 
wreak his vengeance on the defenceless Yaudois of the 
Yal Louise, in the manner described in a preceding- 
chapter. 

Less than a century later, a like attempt was made 
to force the entrance to the valley of Angrogna, by an 
army of Italians and Spaniards, under the command of 
the Count de la Trinite. A proclamation had been 
published, and put up in the villages of Angrogna, 
to the effect that all would be destroyed by fire and 
sword who did not forthwith return to the Church of 
Rome. And as the peasantry did not return, on the 
2nd November, 1560, the Count advanced at the head 
of his army to extirpate the heretics. The Yaudois 
were provided with the rudest sort of weapons ; many 
of them had only slings and cross-bows. But they felt 
strong in the goodness of their cause, and prepared to 
defend themselves to the death. 



388 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



As the Count's army advanced, the Yaudois retired 
until they reached the high ground near Pockemalan, 
where they took their stand. The enemy followed, and 
halted in the valley beneath, lighting their bivouac 
fires, and intending to pass the night there. Before 
darkness fell, however, an accidental circumstance led 
to an engagement. A Yaudois boy, who had got hold 
of a drum, began beating it in a ravine close by. The 
soldiers, thinking a hostile troop had arrived, sprang up 
in disorder and seized their arms. The Yaudois, on 
their part, seeing the movement, and imagining that an 
attack was about to be made on them, rushed forward 
to repel it. The soldiers, surprised and confused, for 
the most part threw away their arms, and fled down 
the valley. Irritated by this disgraceful retreat of 
some twelve hundred soldiers before two hundred 
peasants, the Count advanced a second time, and was 
again repulsed by the little band of heroes, who charged 
his troops with loud shouts of " Yiva Jesu Christo!" 
driving the invaders in confusion down the valley. 

It may be mentioned that the object of the Savoy 
general, in making this attack, was to force the valley, 
and capture the strong position of the Pra du Tour, 
the celebrated stronghold of the Yaudois, from whence 
we shall afterwards find them again driven back, 
baffled and defeated. 

A hundred years passed, and still the Yaudois 
remained unconverted and unexterminated. The 
Marquis of Pianesse now advanced upon Angrogna 
— always with the same object, "ad extirpandos 
hereticos," in obedience to the order of the Propaganda. 
On this occasion not only Italian and Spanish but 
Irish troops were engaged in a combined effort to 
exterminate the Yaudois. The Irish were known as 



BATTLE OF ANGROGNA. 389 



"the assassins " by the people of the valleys, because of 
their almost exceptional ferocity ; and the hatred they 
excited by their outrages on women and children was 
so great, that on the assault and capture of St. Legont 
by the Vaudois peasantry, an Irish regiment surprised 
in barracks was completely destroyed. 

A combined attack was made on Angrogna on the 
15th of June, 1655. On that day four separate bodies 
of troops advanced up the heights from different 
directions, thereby enclosing the little Yaudois army of 
three hundred men assembled there, and led by the 
heroic Javanel. This leader first threw himself upon 
the head of the column which advanced from Rocheplate, 
and drove it downhill. Then he drew off his little 
body towards Rochemalan, when he suddenly found 
himself opposed by the two bodies which had come 
up from St. John and La Tour. Retiring before them, 
he next found himself face to face with the fourth 
detachment, which had come up from Pramol. With 
the quick instinct of military genius, Javanel threw 
himself upon it before the beaten Rocheplate detach- 
ment were able to rally and assail him in flank ; and 
he succeeded in cutting the Pramol force in two and 
passing through it, rushing up to the summit of the 
hill, on which he posted himself. And there he stood 
at bay. 

This hill is precipitous on one side, but of compara- 
tively easy ascent on the side up which the little band 
of heroes had ascended. At the foot of the slope the 
four detachments, three thousand against three hundred, 
drew up and attacked him ; but firing from a distance, 
their aim was not very deadly. For five hours Javanel 
resisted them as he best could, and then, seeing signs 
of impatience and hesitation in the enemy's ranks, he 



390 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



called out to his men, " Forward, my friends ! 99 and 
they rushed down-hill like an avalanche. The three 
thousand men recoiled, broke, and fled before the three 
hundred ; and Javanel returned victorious to his 
entrenchments before Angrogna. 

Yet, again, some eight years later, in 1663, was this 
neighbourhood the scene of another contest, and again 
was Javanel the hero. On this occasion, the Marquis 
de Fleury led the troops of the Duke of Savoy, whose 
object, as before, was to advance up the valley, and 
assail the Yaudois stronghold of Pra du Tour; and 
again the peasantry resisted them successfully, and 
drove them back into the plains. Javanel then went 
to rejoin a party of the men whom he had posted at 
the " Grates of Angrogna'' to defend the pass up the 
valley ; and again he fell upon the enemy engaged in 
attempting to force a passage there, and defeated them 
with heavy loss. 

Such are among the exciting events which have 
occurred in this one locality in connection with the 
Yaudois struggle for country and liberty. 

Let us now proceed up the valley of Angrogna, 
towards the famous stronghold of the Pra du Tour, the 
object of those repeated attacks of the enemy in the 
neighbourhood of Pochemalan. As we advance, the 
mountains gradually close in upon the valley, leaving 
a comparatively small width of pasture land by the 
river-side. At the hamlet of Serre the carriage road 
ends ; and from thence the valley grows narrower, the 
mountains which enclose it become more rugged and 
abrupt, until there is room enough only for a footpath 
along a rocky ledge, and the torrent running in its 
deep bed alongside. This continues for a considerable 
distance, the path in some places being overhung by 



PRA DU TOUR. 



39i 



precipices, or encroached upon by rocks and boulders 
fallen from the heights, until at length we emerge 
from the defile, and find ourselves in a comparatively 
open space, the famous Pra du Tour; the defile we 
have passed, alongside the torrent and overhung by 
the rocks, being known as the Barricade. 

-The Pra du Tour, or Meadow of the Tower, is a 
little amphitheatre surrounded by rugged and almost 
inaccessible mountains, situated at the head of the 
valley of: ; Angrogna. The steep slopes bring down 
into this deep dell the headwaters of the torrent, which 
escape among the rocks down the defile we have just 
ascended. The path up the defile forms the only ap- 
proach to the ? Pra from the valley, but it is so narrow, 
tortuous, and - difficult, that the labours of only a few 
men in blocking up the pathway with rocks and stones 
that lie ready at hand, might at any time so barricade 
the approach as to render it impracticable. The 
extremely secluded position of the place, its natural 
strength and ^inaccessibility, and its proximity to the 
principal Yaudois towns and villages, caused it to be 
regarded from the earliest times as their principal 
refuge. It was their fastness, their fortress, and often 
their home. It was more — it was their school and 
college ; for in the depths of the Pra du Tour the 
pastors, or barbas* educated young men for the 
ministry, and provided for the religious instruction of 
the Yaudois population. 

It was the importance of the Pra du Tour as a 
stronghold that rendered it so often the object of 
attack through the valley of Angrogna. When the 
hostile troops of Savoy advanced upon La Tour, the 

* Barba — a title of respect ; in the Yaudois dialect literally signify- 
ing an uncle. 



392 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



inhabitants of the neighbouring valleys at once fled to 
the Pra, into which they drove their cattle, and carried 
what provisions they could ; there constructing mills, 
ovens, houses, and all that was requisite for subsistence, 
as in a fort. The men capable of bearing arms stood on 
their guard to defend the passes of the Yachere and 
Boussine, at the extreme heads of the valley, as well 
as the defile of the Barricade, while other bodies, 
stationed lower down, below the Barricade, prepared to 
resist the troops seeking to force an entrance up the 
valley ; and hence the repeated battles in the neigh- 
bourhood of Pochemalan above described. 

On the occasion of the defeat of the Count de la 
Trinite by the little Yaudois band near the village of 
Angrogna, in November, 1560, the general drew off, 
and waited the arrival of reinforcements. A large 
body of Spanish veterans having joined him, in the 
course of the following spring he again proceeded up 
the valley, determined, if possible, to force the Barri- 
cade — the royal forces now numbering some seven 
thousand men, all disciplined troops. The peasants, 
finding their first position no longer tenable in the 
face of such numbers, abandoned Angrogna and the 
lower villages, and retired, with the whole population, 
to the Pra du Tour. The Count followed them with 
his main army, at the same time directing two other 
bodies of troops to advance upon the place round by 
the mountains, one by the heights of the Yachere, and 
another by Les Fourests. The defenders of the Pra 
would thus be assailed from three sides at once, their 
forces divided, and victory rendered certain. 

But the Count did not calculate upon the desperate 
bravery of the defenders. All three bodies were 
beaten back in succession. For four days the Count 



/ 



PRA DU TOUR. 



393 



made every effort to force the defile, and failed. Two 
colonels, eight captains, and four hundred men fell in 
these desperate assaults, without gaining an inch of 
ground. On the fifth day a combined attack was made 
with the reserve, composed of Spanish companies, but 
this, too, failed; and the troops, when ordered to 
return to the charge, refused to obey. The Count, 
who commanded, is said to have wept as he sat on a 
rock and looked upon so many of his dead — the 
soldiers themselves exclaiming, " God fights for these 
people, and we do them wrong ! " 

About a hundred years later, the Marquis de 
Pianesse, who, like the Count de la Trinite, had been 
defeated at Pocherualan, made a similar attempt to 
surprise the Yaudois stronghold, with a like result. 
The peasants were commanded on this occasion by 
John Leger, the pastor and historian. Those who 
were unarmed hurled rocks and stones on the assailants 
from the heights ; and the troops being thus thrown 
into confusion, the Yaudois rushed from behind their 
ramparts, and drove them in a state of total rout down 
the valley. 

On entering the Pra du Tour, one of the most pro- 
minent objects that meets the eye is the Roman 
Catholic chapel recently erected there, though the few 
inhabitants of the district are still almost entirely 
Protestant. The Eoman Catholic Church has, however, 
now done what the Roman Catholic armies failed to do 
— established itself in the midst of the Yaudois strong- 
hold, though by no means in the hearts of the people. 

Desirous of ascertaining, if possible, the site of the 
ancient college, we proceeded up the Pra, and hailed a 
young woman whom we observed crossing the rustic 
bridge over the Pele, one of the mountain rivulets 



394 THE COUXTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



running into the torrent of Angrogna. Inquiring of 
her as to the site of the college, she told us we had 
already passed it, and led us back to the place — up 
the rocky side of the hill leading to the Tachere — 
past the cottage where she herself lived, and pointed to. 
the site : " There," she said, " is where the ancient 
college of the Yaudois stood." The old building has, 
however, long since been removed, the present struc- 
ture being merely part of a small farmsteading. 
Higher up the steep hill-side, on successive ledges of 
rock, are -the ruins of various buildings, some of which 
may have been dwellings, and one, larger than the 
rest, on a broader plateau, with an elder-tree growing 
in the centre, may possibly have been the temple. 

From the higher shelves on this mountain-side the 
view is extremely wild and grand. The acclivities 
which surround the head of the Pra seem as if battle- 
ment ed walls ; the mountain opposite throws its 
sombre shadow over the ravine in which the torrent 
runs ; whilst, down the valley, rock seems piled on 
rock, and mountain on mountain. All is perfectly 
still, and the silence is only audible by the occasional 
tinkling of a sheep-bell, or the humming of a bee in 
search of flowers on the mountain- side. So peaceful 
and quiet is the place, that it is difficult to believe it 
could ever have been the scene of such deadly strife, 
and rung with the shouts of men thirsting for each 
other's blood. 

After lingering about the place until the sun was 
far on his way towards the horizon, we returned by the 
road we had come, the valley seeming more beautiful 
than ever under the glow of evening, and arrived 
at our destination about dusk, to find the fireflies dart- 
ing about the streets of La Tour. 



MR. EDWARD MILSOM. 



395 



The next day saw us at Turin, and our summer 
excursion at an end. Mr. Milsom, who had so plea- 
santly accompanied me through the valleys, had been 
summoned to attend the death-bed of a friend at 
Antibes, and he set out on the journey forthwith. 
While still there, he received a telegram intimating 
the death of his daughter at Allevard, near Grenoble, 
and he arrived only in time to attend her funeral. 
Two months later, he lost another dear daughter; 
shortly after, his mother-in-law died; and in the 
following December he himself died suddenly of heart 
disease, and followed them to the grave. 

One could not but conceive a hearty liking for 
Edward Milsom — he was such a thoroughly good man. 
He was a native of London, but spent the greater part 
of his life at Lyons, in France, where he long since 
settled and married. He there carried on a large 
business as a silk merchant, but was always ready to 
give a portion of his time and money to help forward 
any good work. He was an " ancien," or elder, of the 
Evangelical church at Lyons, originally founded by 
Adolphe Monod, to whom he was also related by 
marriage. 

Some years since he was very much interested by 
the perusal of Pastor Bost's account of his visit to the 
scene of Felix NefFs labours in the High Alps. He 
felt touched by the simple, faithful character of the 
people, and keenly sympathised with their destitute 
condition. " Here," said he, " is a field in which I 
may possibly be of some use." And he at once went to 
their help. He visited the district of Fressinieres, 
including the hamlet of Dormilhouse, as well as the 
more distant villages of Arvieux and Sans Veran, up 
the vale of Queyras ; and nearly every year thereafter 



396 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



he devoted a certain portion of his time in visiting the 
poorer congregations of the district, giving them such 
help and succour as lay in his power. 

His repeated visits made him well known to the 
people of the valleys, who valued him as a friend, if they 
did not even love him as a brother. His visits were 
also greatly esteemed by the pastors, who stood much 
in need of encouragement and help. He cheered the 
wavering, strengthened the feeble-hearted, and stimu- 
lated all to renewed life and action. Wherever he 
went, a light seemed to shine in his path ; and when 
he departed, he was followed by many blessings. 

In one place he would arrange for the opening of a 
new place of worship ; in another, for the opening of a 
boys' school ; in a third, for the industrial employment 
of girls ; and wherever there was any little heart- 
burning or jealousy to be allayed, he would set himself 
to remove it. His admirable tact, his unfailing temper, 
and excellent good sense, rendered him a wise counsellor 
and a most successful conciliator. 

The last time Mr. Milsom visited England, towards 
the end of 1869, he was occupied, as usual, in collecting 
subscriptions for the poor Yaudois of the High Alps. 
K ow that the good " merchant missionary " has rested 
from his labours, they will indeed feel the loss of their 
friend. Who is to assume his mantle ? 



CHAPTER YII 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN: 
AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN VAUD0IS. 

TT7TEAT is known as The Glorious Beturn, or re- 
* » entry of the exiled Yaudois in 1689 to resume 
possession of the valleys from which they had been 
banished, will always stand out as one of the most 
remarkable events in history. 

If ever a people fairly established their right to live 
in their own country, and to worship God after their 
own methods, the Yaudois had surely done so. They 
had held conscientiously and consistently to their 
religion for nearly five hundred years, during which 
they laboured under many disabilities and suffered 
much persecution. But the successive Dukes of Savoy 
were no better satisfied with them as subjects than 
before. They could not brook that any part of their 
people should be of a different form of religion from 
that professed by themselves ; and they continued, at 
the instance of successive popes, to let slip the dogs of 
war upon the valleys, in the hopes of eventually com- 
pelling the Yaudois to "come in" and make their peace 
with the Church. 

The result of these invasions was almost uniform. 
At the first sudden inroad of the troops, the people, 



3 9 8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



taken by surprise, usually took to flight ; on which 
their dwellings were burnt and their fields laid waste. 
But when they had time to rally and . collect their 
forces, the almost invariable result was that the 
Piedmontese were driven out of the valleys again with 
ignominy and loss. The Duke's invasion of 1655 was, 
however, attended with greater success than usual. 
His armies occupied the greater part of the valleys, 
though the Vaudois still held out, and made occasional 
successful sallies from their mountain fastnesses. At 
length, the Protestants of the Swiss Confederation, 
taking compassion on their co-religionists in Piedmont, 
sent ambassadors to the Duke of Savoy at Turin to 
intercede for their relief; and the result was the 
amnesty granted to them in that year under the title 
of the " Patents of Grace.'' The terms were very 
hard, but they were agreed to. The Vaudois were to 
be permitted to re-occupy their valleys, conditional on 
their rebuilding all the Catholic churches which had 
been destroyed, paying to the Duke an indemnity of 
fifty thousand francs, and ceding to him the richest 
lands in the valley of Luzerna — the last relics of their 
fortunes being thus taken from them to remunerate 
the barbarity of their persecutors. 

It was also stipulated by this treaty, that the pastors 
of the Vaudois churches were to be natives of the 
district only, and that they were to be at liberty to 
administer religious instruction in their own manner 
in all the Vaudois parishes, excepting that of St. John, 
near La Tour, where their worship was interdicted. 
The only persons excepted from the terms of the 
amnesty were Javanel, the heroic old captain, and 
Jean Leger, the pastor-historian, the most prominent 
leaders of the Vaudois in the recent war, both of 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



whom were declared to be banished the ducal do- 
minions. 

Under this treaty the Vaudois enjoyed peace for 
about thirty years, during which they restored the 
cultivation of the valleys, rebuilt the villages, and were 
acknowledged to be among the most loyal, peaceable, 
and industrious of the subjects of Savoy. 

There were, however, certain parts of the valleys to 
which the amnesty granted by the Duke did not apply. 
Thus, it did not apply to the valleys of Perouse and 
Pragela, which did not then form part of the dominions 
of Savoy, but were included within the French frontier. 
It was out of this circumstance that a difficulty arose 
with the French monarch, which issued in the revival 
of the persecution in the valleys, the banishment of 
the Yaudois into Switzerland, and their eventual 
" Glorious Beturn" in the manner we are about briefly 
to narrate. 

When Louis XIV. of France revoked the Edict of 
Nantes in 1685, and interdicted all Protestant worship 
throughout his dominions, the law of course applied to 
the valleys of Perouse and Pragela as to the other 
parts of France. The Vaudois pastors were banished, 
and the people were forbidden to profess any other 
religion than that prescribed by the King, under 
penalty of confiscation of their goods, imprisonment, 
or banishment. The Vaudois who desired to avoid 
these penalties while they still remained staunch to 
their faith, did what so many Frenchmen then did — 
they fled across the frontier and took refuge in foreign 
lands. Some of the inhabitants of the French valleys 
went northward into Switzerland, while others passed 
across the mountains towards the south, and took 
refuge in the valley of the Pelice, where the Vaudois 



4 oo THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



religion continued to be tolerated under the terms of 
the amnesty above referred to, which had been granted 
by the Duke of Savoy. 

The French king, when he found his Huguenot 
subjects flying in all directions rather than remain in 
France and be " converted " to Roman Catholicism, 
next tried to block up the various avenues of escape, 
and to prevent the rulers of the adjoining countries 
from giving the fugitives asylum. Great was his dis- 
pleasure when he heard of the flight of the Vaudois of 
Perouse and Pragela into the adjoining valleys. He 
directed the French ambassador at Turin to call upon 
the Duke of Savoy, and require him to prevent their 
settlement within his dominions. At the same time, 
he called upon the Duke to take steps to compel the 
conversion of his people from the pretended reformed 
faith, and offered the aid of his troops to enforce their 
submission, " at whatever cost." 

The Duke was irritated at the manner in which he 
was approached. Louis XIY. was treating him as a 
vassal of France rather than as an independent 
sovereign. But he felt himself to be weak, and com- 
paratively powerless to resent the insult. So he first 
temporised, then vacillated, and being again pressed by 
the French king, he eventually yielded. The amnesty 
was declared to be at an end, and the Yaudois were 
ordered forthwith to become members of the Church of 
Borne. An edict was issued on the 31st of January, 
1686, forbidding the exercise by the Yaudois of their 
religion, abolishing their ancient privileges, and 
ordering the demolition of all their places of worship. 
Pastors and schoolmasters who refused to be converted 
were ordered to quit the country within fifteen days, 
on pain of death and confiscation of their goods. All 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



refugee Protestants from France were ordered to leave 
under the same penalty. All children born of 
Protestant parents were to be compulsorily educated as 
Roman Catholics. This barbarous measure was merely 
a repetition by the Duke of Savoy in Piedmont of 
what his master Louis XIV. had already done in 
France. 

The Vaudois expostulated with their sovereign, 
but in vain. They petitioned, but there was no reply. 
They requested the interposition of the Swiss Govern- 
ment as before, but the Duke took no notice of their 
memorial. The question of resistance was then dis- 
cussed ; but the people were without leaders. Javanel 
was living in banishment at Geneva — old and worn out, 
and unable to lead them. Besides, the Yaudois, before 
taking up arms, wished to exhaust every means of con- 
ciliation. Ambassadors next came from Switzerland, 
who urged them to submit to the clemency of the Duke, 
and suggested that they should petition him for per- 
mission to leave the country ! The Yaudois were 
stupefied by the proposal. They were thus asked, 
without a contest, to submit to all the ignominy and 
punishment of defeat, and to terminate their very 
existence as a people ! The ambassadors represented 
that resistance to the combined armies of Savoy, 
France, and Spain, without leaders, and with less 
than three thousand combatants, was little short of 
madness. 

Nevertheless, a number of the Yaudois determined 
not to leave their valleys without an attempt to hold 
them, as they had so often successfully done before. 
The united armies of France and Savoy then advanced 
upon the valleys, and arrangements were made for a 
general attack upon the Yaudois position on Easter 



402 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



Monday, 1686, at break of day, — the Duke of Savoy 
assailing the valley of Luzerna, while Catinat, com- 
mander of the French troops, advanced on St. Martin. 
Catinat made the first attack on the village of St. 
Germain, and was beaten back with heavy loss after 
six hours' fighting. Henry Arnaud, the Huguenot 
pastor from Die in Dauphiny, of which he was a 
native, particularly distinguished himself by his bravery 
in this affair, and from that time began to be regarded 
as one of the most promising of the Yaudois leaders. 

Catinat renewed the attack on the following day 
with the assistance of fresh troops ; and he eventually 
succeeded in overcoming the resistance of the handful 
of men who opposed him, and sweeping the valley of 
St. Martin. Men, women, and children were indis- 
criminately put to the sword. In some of the parishes 
no resistance was offered, the inhabitants submitting 
to the Duke's proclamation ; but whether they submitted 
or not, made no difference in their treatment, which 
was barbarous in all cases. 

Meanwhile, the Duke of Savoy's army advanced from 
the vale of Luzerna upon the celebrated heights of 
Angrogna, and assailed the Yaudois assembled there at 
all points. The resistance lasted for an entire day, and 
when night fell, both forces slept on the ground upon 
which they had fought, kindling their bivouac fires on 
both sides. On the following day the attack was 
renewed, and again the battle raged until night. Then 
Don Grabriel of Savoy, who was in command, resolved 
to employ the means which Catinat had found so suc- 
cessful : he sent forward messengers to inform the 
Yaudois that their brethren of the Yal St. Martin had 
laid down their arms and been pardoned, inviting them 
to follow their example. The result of further parley 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



was, that on the express promise of his Royal Highness 
that they should receive pardon, and that neither their 
persons nor those of their wives or children should be 
touched, the credulous Yaudois, still hoping for fair 
treatment, laid down their arms, and permitted the 
ducal troops to take possession of their entrenchments ! 

The same treacherous strategy proved equally suc- 
cessful against the defenders of the Pra du Tour. 
After beating back their assailants and firmly holding 
their ground for an entire day, they were told of 
the surrender of their compatriots, promised a full 
pardon, and assured of life and liberty, on condition of 
immediately ceasing further hostilities. They accord- 
ingly consented to lay down their arms, and the 
impregnable fastness of the Pra du Tour, which had 
never been taken by force, thus fell before falsehood 
and perfidy. " The defenders of this ancient sanctuary 
of the Church," says Dr. Muston, " were loaded with 
irons ; their children were carried off and scattered 
through the Roman Catholic districts ; their wives and 
daughters were violated, massacred, or made captives. 
As for those that still remained, all whom the enemy 
could seize became a prey devoted to carnage, spoliation, 
fire, excesses which cannot be told, and outrages which 
it would be impossible to describe/'* 

"All the valleys are now exterminated," wrote a 
French officer to his friends ; " the people are all killed, 
hanged, or massacred." The Duke, Yictor Amadeus, 
issued a decree, declaring the Yaudois to be guilty of 
high treason, and confiscating all their property. 
Arnaud says as many as eleven thousand persons were 
killed, or perished in prison, or died of want, in conse- 

* Huston's " Israel of the Alps," translated by Montgomery ; 
Glasgow, 1857 ; vol. i. p. 416. 



4 o4 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



quence of this horrible Easter festival of blood. Six 
thousand were taken prisoners, and the greater number 
of these died in gaol of hunger and disease. When 
the prisons were opened, and the wretched survivors 
were ordered to quit the country, forbidden to return 
to it on pain of death, only about two thousand six 
hundred contrived to struggle across the frontier into 
Switzerland. 

And thus at last the Vaudois Church seemed utterly 
uprooted and destroyed. What the Dukes of Savoy 
had so often attempted in vain was now accomplished. 
A second St. Bartholomew had been achieved, and 
Eome rang with Te Deums in praise of the final dis- 
persion of the Yaudois. The Pope sent to Victor 
Amadeus II. a special brief, congratulating him on the 
extirpation of heresy in his dominions ; and Pied- 
montese and Savoyards, good Catholics, were presented 
with the lands from which the Yaudois had been driven. 
Those of them who remained in the country " uncon- 
verted' ' were as so many scattered fugitives in the 
mountains — sheep wandering about without a shepherd. 
Some of the Yaudois, for the sake of their families and 
homes, pretended conversion ; but these are admitted to 
have been comparatively few in number. In short, the 
" Israel of the Alps" seemed to be no more, and its 
people utterly and for ever dispersed. Pierre Allix, 
the Huguenot refugee pastor in England, in his 
"History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont," 
dedicated to William III., regarded the Yaudois 
Church as obliterated — " their present desolation 
seeming so universal, that the world looks upon them 
no otherwise than as irrecoverably lost, and finally 
destroyed." 

Three years passed. The expelled Yaudois reached 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



Switzerland in greatly reduced numbers, many women 
and children having perished on their mountain 
journey. The inhabitants of Geneva received them 
with great hospitality, clothing and feeding them until 
they were able to proceed on their way northward. 
Some went into Brandenburg, some into Hollands 
while others settled to various branches of industry in 
different parts of Switzerland. Many of them, however, 
experienced great difficulty in obtaining a settlement. 
Those who had entered the Palatinate were driven 
thence by war, and those who had entered TYurtembur*? 
were expelled by the Grand Duke, who feared incurring 
the ire of Louis XI Y. by giving them shelter and pro- 
tection. Hence many little bands of the Vaudois 
refugees long continued to wander along the valley of 
the Rhine, unable to find rest for their weary feet. 
There were others trying to earn a precarious living in 
Geneva and Lausanne, and along the shores of Lake 
Leman. Some of these were men who had fought under 
Javanel in his heroic combats with the Piedmontese ; 
and they thought with bitter grief of the manner in 
which they had fallen into the trap of Catinat and the 
Duke of Savoy, and abandoned their country almost 
without a struggle. 

Then it was that the thought occurred to them 
whether they might not yet strike a blow for the 
recovery of their valleys ! The idea seemed chimerical 
in the extreme. A few hundred destitute men, 
however valiant, to think of recovering a country 
defended by the combined armies of France and Savoy ! 
Javanel, the old Yaudois hero, disabled by age and 
wounds, was still alive — an exile at Geneva — and he 
was consulted on the subject. Javanel embraced the 
project with enthusiasm; and the invasion of the 



4 o6 THE COUNTRY CF THE VAUDOIS. 



valleys was resolved upon ! A more daring, and appa- 
rently more desperate enterprise, was never planned. 

Who was to be their leader ? Javanel himself was 
disabled. Though his mind was clear, and his patriotic 
ardour unquenched, his body was weak ; and all that 
he could do was to encourage and advise. But he 
found a noble substitute in Henry Arnaud, the Hugue- 
not refugee, who had already distinguished himself in 
his resistance to the troops of Savoy. And Arnaud 
was now ready to offer up his life for the recovery of 
the valleys. 

The enterprise was kept as secret as possible, yet not 
so close as to prevent the authorities of Berne obtaining 
some inkling of their intentions. Three confidential 
messengers were first dispatched to the valleys to ascer- 
tain the disposition of the population, and more par- 
ticularly to examine the best route by which an 
invasion might be made. On their return with the 
necessary information, the plan was settled by Javanel, 
as it was to be carried out by Arnaud. In the mean- 
time, the magistrates of Geneva, having obtained 
information as to the intended movement, desirous of 
averting the hostility of France and Savoy, required 
Javanel to leave their city, and he at once retired to 
Ouchy, a little farther up the lake. 

The greatest difficulty experienced by the Vaudois 
in carrying out their enterprise was the want of means. 
They were poor, destitute refugees, without arms, 
ammunition, or money to buy them. To obtain the 
requisite means, Arnaud made a journey into Holland, 
for the purpose of communicating the intended project 
to William of Orange. William entered cordially into 
the proposed plan, recommended Arnaud to several 
Huguenot officers, who afterwards took part in the 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



407 



expedition, supplied him with assistance in money, and 
encouraged him to carry out the design. Several 
private persons in Holland — amongst others the post- 
master-general at Leyden — also largely contributed to 
the enterprise. 

At length all was ready. The men who intended 
to take part in the expedition came together from 
various quarters. Some came from Brandenburg, 
others from Bavaria and distant parts of Switzerland ; 
and among those who joined them was a body of 
French Huguenots, willing to share in their dangers 
and their glory. One of their number, Captain Turrel, 
like Arnaud, a native of Die in Dauphiny, was even 
elected as the general of the expedition. Their rendez- 
vous was in the forest of Prangins, near Nyon, on the 
north bank of the Lake of Geneva ; and there, on the 
night of the 16th of August, 1689, they met in the 
hollow recesses of the wood. Fifteen boats had been 
got together, and lay off the shore. After a fervent 
prayer by the pastor- general Arnaud, imploring a 
blessing upon the enterprise, as many of the men as 
could embark got into the boats. As the lake is there 
at its narrowest, they soon rowed across to the other 
side, near the town of Yvoire, and disembarked on the 
shore of Savoy. Arnaud had posted sentinels in all 
directions, and the little body waited the arrival of the 
remainder of their comrades from the opposite shore. 
They had all crossed the lake by two o'clock in the 
morning ; and about eight hundred men, divided into 
nineteen companies,* each provided with its captain, 
were now ready to march. 

* Of the nineteen companies three were composed of the Vaudois 
of Angrogna ; those of Bobi and St. John furnished two each ; and 
those of La Tour, Villar, Prarustin, Prali, Macel, St. Germain, and 
Pramol, furnished one each. The remaining six companies were com- 



4 o8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



At the very commencement, however, they met with 
a misfortune. One of the pastors, having gone to seek 
a guide in the village near at hand, was seized as a 
prisoner by the local authorities, and carried off. On 
this, the Yaudois, seeing that they were treated as 
enemies, sent a party to summon Yvoire to open its 
gates, and it obeyed. The lord of the manor and the 
receiver of taxes were taken as hostages, and made to 
accompany the troop until they reached the next com- 
mune, when they were set at liberty, and replaced by 
other hostages. 

When it became known that the little army of 
Yaudois had set out on their march, troops were dis- 
patched from all quarters to intercept them and cut 
them off ; and it was believed that their destruction 
was inevitable. " What possible chance is there," 
asked the Historic Mercury of the day, " of this small 
body of men penetrating to their native country through 
the masses of French and Piedmontese troops accumu- 
lating from all sides, without being crushed and 
exterminated? " " It is impossible," wrote the Ley den 
Gazette, " notwithstanding whatever precautions they 
may take, that the Yaudois can extricate themselves 
without certain death, and the Court of Savoy may 
therefore regard itself safe so far as they are con- 
cerned." 

No sooner had the boats left the shore at Nyon for 
the further side of the lake than the young seigneur of 
Prangins, who had been watching their movements, 

posed of French Huguenot refugees from Dauphiny and Languedoe 
under their respective officers. Besides these, there were different 
smaller parties who constituted a volunteer company. The entire 
force of about eight hundred men was marshalled in three divisions — 
vanguard, main body, and rearguard — and this arrangement was 
strictly observed in the order of march. 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 409 

rode off at full speed to inform the French resident at 
Geneva of the departure of the Yaudois ; and orders 
were at once dispatched to Lyons for a strong body of 
cavalry to march immediately towards Savoy to cut 
them off. But the Yaudois had well matured their 
plans, and took care to keep out of reach of the advan- 
cing enemy. Their route at first lay up the valleys 
towards the mountains, whose crests they followed, 
from glacier to glacier, in places almost inaccessible to 
regular troops, and thus they eluded the combined 
forces of France and Savoy, which vainly endeavoured 
to bar their passage. 

The first day's march led them into the valley of the 
Arve, by the Col de Yoirons, from which they took 
their last view of the peaceful Lake of Greneva ; thence 
they proceeded by the pyramidal mountain called the 
Mole to the little town of Yiu, where they rested for 
two hours, starting again by moonlight, and passing 
through St. Joire, where the magistrates brought out 
a great cask of wine, and placed it in the middle of the 
street for their refreshment. The little army, however, 
did not halt there, but marched on to the bare hill of 
Carman, where, after solemn prayer, they encamped 
about midnight, sleeping on the bare ground. Isext 
day found them in front of the small walled town of 
Cluse, in the rocky gorge of the Arve. The authorities 
shut the gates, on which the Yaudois threatened to 
storm the place, when the gates were opened, and they 
marched through the town, the inhabitants standing 
under arms along both sides of the street. Here the 
Yaudois purchased a store of food and wine, which 
they duly paid for. 

They then proceeded on to Sallanches, where resist- 
ance was threatened. They found a body of men posted 



4io THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



on the wooden bridge which there separated the Tillage 
of St. Martin from Sallanches ; but rushing forward, 
the defenders of the bridge fled, and the little army 
passed over and proceeded to range themselves in order 
of battle over against the town, which was defended by 
six hundred troops. The Yaudois having threatened 
to burn the town, and kill the hostages whom they 
had taken on the slightest show of resistance, the threat 
had its effect, and they were permitted to pass without 
further opposition, encamping for the night at a little 
village about a league further on. And thus closed 
the second day's march. 

The third day they passed over the mountains of 
Lez Pras and Haute Luce, seven thousand feet above 
the sea-level, a long and fatiguing march. At one 
place the guide lost his way, and rain fell heavily, 
soaking the men to the skin. They spent a wretched 
night in some empty stables at the hamlet of St. 
Nicholas de Verose ; and started earlier than usual on 
the following morning, addressing themselves to the 
formidable work of climbing the Col Bonhomme, which 
they passed with the snow up to their knees. They 
were now upon the crest of the Alps, looking down 
upon the valley of the Isere, into which they next 
descended. They traversed the valley without resist- 
ance, passing through St. Germain and Scez, turning 
aside at the last-mentioned place up the valley of 
Tignes, thereby avoiding the French troops lying in 
wait for them in the neighbourhood of Moutiers, lower 
down the valley of the Isere. Later in the evening 
they reached Laval, at the foot of Mont Iseran ; and 
here Arnaud, for the first time during eight days, 
snatched a few hours' sleep on a bed in the village. 

The sixth day saw the little army climbing the 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



411 



steep slopes of Mont Iseran, where the shepherds gave 
them milk and wished them God-speed ; but they 
warned them that a body of troops lay in their way at 
Mont Cenis. On they went — over the mountain, and 
along the crest of the chain, until they saw Bonneval 
in the valley beneath them, and there they descended, 
passing on to Bessant in the valley of the Arc, where 
they encamped for the night. 

Next day they marched on Mont Cenis, which they 
ascended. As they were crossing the mountain a 
strange incident occurred. The Yaudois saw before 
them a large convoy of mules loaded with baggage. 
And shortly after there came up the carriage and 
equipage of some grand personage. It proved to 
be Cardinal Ranuzzi, on his way to Rome to take part 
in the election of Pope Alexander VIII. The Vaudois 
seized the mules carrying the baggage, which contained 
important documents compromising Louis XIV. with 
Victor Amadeus ; and it is said that in consequence of 
their loss, the Cardinal, who himself aspired to the 
tiara, afterwards died of chagrin, crying in his last 
moments, " My papers ! oh, my papers ! " 

The passage of the Great and Little Cenis was 
effected with great difficulty. The snow lay thick on 
the ground, though it was the month of August, and 
the travellers descended the mountain of Tourliers by 
a precipice rather than a road. "When night fell, they 
were still scattered on the mountain, and lay down to 
snatch a brief sleep, overcome with hunger and fatigue. 
Next morning they gathered together again, and 
descended into the sterile valley of the Gaillon, and 
shortly after proceeded to ascend the mountain 
opposite. 

They were now close upon the large towns. Susa 



4 i2 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



lay a little to the east, and Exilles was directly in their 
way. The garrison of the latter place came out to 
meet them, and from the crest of the mountain rolled 
large stones and flung grenades down upon the invaders. 
Here the Yaudois lost some men and prisoners, and 
finding the further ascent impracticable, they retreated 
into the valley from which they had come, and again 
ascended the steep slope of Tourliers in order to turn 
the heights on which the French troops were posted. 
At last, after great fatigue and peril, unable to proceed 
further, they gained the crest of the mountain, and 
sounded their clarions to summon the scattered body. 

After a halt of two hours they proceeded along the 
ridge, and perceived through the mist a body of soldiers 
marching along with drums beating ; it was the gar- 
rison of Exilles. The Yaudois were recognised and 
followed by the soldiers at a distance. Proceeding a 
little further, they came in sight of the long valley of 
the Doire, and looking down into it, not far from the 
bridge of Salabertrans, they discerned some thirty-six 
bivouac fires burning on the plain, indicating the 
presence of a large force. These were their enemies — 
a well-appointed army of some two thousand five 
hundred men — whom they were at last to meet in 
battle. Nothing discouraged, they descended into the 
valley, and the advanced guard shortly came in contact 
with the enemy's outposts. Firing between them went 
on for an hour and a half, and then night fell. 

The Yaudois leaders held a council to determine 
what they should do ; and the result was, that an 
immediate attack was resolved upon, in three bodies. 
The principal attack was made on the bridge, the pas- 
sage of which was defended by a strong body of French 
soldiers, under the command of Colonel de Larrey. 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



4i3 



On the advance of the Yaudois in the darkness, they 
were summoned to stand, but continued to advance, 
when the enemy fired a volley on them, killing three 
men. Then the Yaudois brigade rushed to the bridge, 
but seeing a strong body on the other side preparing 
to fire again, Arnaud called upon his men to lie down, 
and the volley went over their heads. Then Turrel, 
the Yaudois captain, calling out " Forward ! the bridge 
is won ! " the Yaudois jumped to their feet and rushed 
on. The two wings at the same time concentrated 
their fire on the defenders, who broke and retired, and 
the bridge was won. But at the further side, where 
the French were in overpowering numbers, they re- 
fused to give way, and poured down their fire on their 
assailants. The Yaudois boldly pressed on. They 
burst through the French force, cutting it in two ; 
and fresh men pouring over, the battle was soon won. 
The French commander was especially chagrined at 
having been beaten by a parcel of cowherds. " Is it 
possible," he exclaimed, "that I have lost both the 
battle and my honour?" 

The rising moon showed the ground strewed with 
about seven hundred dead ; the Yaudois having lost 
only twenty- two killed and eight wounded. The victors 
filled their pouches with ammunition picked up on the 
field, took possession of as many arms and as much 
provisions as they could carry, and placing the re- 
mainder in a heap over some barrels of powder, 
they affixed a lighted match and withdrew. A tremen- 
dous explosion shook the mountains, and echoed along 
the valley, and the remains of the French camp were 
blown to atoms. The Yaudois then proceeded at once 
to climb the mountain of Sci, which had to be crossed 
in order to enter the valley of Pragelas. 



4H THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



It was early on a Sabbath morning, the ninth day of 
their march, that the Yaudois reached the crest of the 
mountain overlooking Fenestrelles, and saw spread out 
before them the beloved country which they had come 
to win. They halted for the stragglers, and when 
these had come up, Arnaud made them kneel down 
and thank God for permitting them again to see their 
native land ; himself offering up an eloquent prayer, 
which cheered and strengthened them for further 
effort. And then they descended into the valley of 
Pragelas, passing the river Clusone, and halting to 
rest at the little village of La Traverse. They were 
now close to the Yaudois strongholds, and in a country 
every foot of which was familiar to most of them. But 
their danger was by no means over ; for the valleys 
were swarming with dragoons and foot- soldiers ; and 
when they had shaken off those of France, they had 
still to encounter the troops of Savoy. 

Late in the afternoon the little army again set out 
for the valley of St. Martin, passing the night in the 
mountain hamlet of Jussand, the highest on the Col 
du Pis. Next day they descended the Col near Seras, 
and first came in contact with the troops of Savoy ; but 
these having taken to flight, no collision occurred; 
and on the following day the Yaudois arrived, without 
further molestation, at the famous Balsille. 

This celebrated stronghold is situated in front of the 
narrow defile of Macel, which leads into the valley of 
St. Martin. It is a rampart of rock, standing at the 
entrance to the pass, and is of such natural strength, 
that but little art was needed to make it secure against 
any force that could be brought against it. There is 
only one approach to it from the valley of St. Martin, 
which is very difficult ; a portion of the way being in 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



4i5 



a deep wooded gorge, where a few men could easily 
arrest the progress of an army. The rock itself con- 
sists of three natural stages or terraces, the highest 
part rising steep as a wall, being surmounted by a 
natural platform. The mountain was well supplied 
with water, which gushed forth in several places. 
Caverns had been hollowed out in the sides of the 
rocks, which served as hiding-places during the per- 
secutions which so often ravaged the valleys ; and these 
were now available for storehouses and barracks. 

The place was, indeed, so intimately identified with 
the past sufferings and triumphs of the Yaudois, and it 
was, besides, so centrally situated, and so secure, that 
they came to regard its possession as essential to the 
success of their enterprise. The aged Javanel, who 
drew up the plan of the invasion before the eight 
hundred set out on their march, attached the greatest 
importance to its early occupation. " Spare no labour 
nor pains/' he said, in the memorandum of directions 
which he drew up, " in fortifying this post, which will 
be your most secure fortress. Do not quit it unless in 
the utmost extremity. . . . You will, of course, be 
told that you cannot hold it always, and that rather 
than not succeed in their object, all France and Italy 
will gather together against you. . . . But were 
it the whole world, and only yourselves against all, 
fear ye the Almighty alone, who is your protection." 

On the arrival of the Yaudois at the Balsille, they 
discerned a small body of troops advancing towards 
them by the Col du Pis, higher up the valley. They 
proved to be Piedmontese, forty- six in number, sent to 
occupy the pass. They were surrounded, disarmed, 
and put to death, and their arms were hid away 
amongst the rocks. No quarter was given on either 



4 i 6 THE COUNTRY GF THE VAUDOIS. 



side during this war ; the Yaudois had no prisons in 
which to place their captives; and they themselves, 
when taken, were treated not as soldiers, but as bandits, 
being instantly hung on the nearest trees. The Yaudois 
did not, however, yet take up their permanent position 
at the Balsille, being desirous of rousing the valleys 
towards the south. The day following, accordingly, 
they marched to Pralis, in the valley of the Grermanasca, 
when, for the first time since their exile, they celebrated 
Divine worship in one of the temples of their ancestors. 

They were now on their way towards the valley of 
the Pelice, to reach which it was necessary that they 
should pass over the Col Julian. An army of three 
thousand Piedmontese barred their way, but nothing 
daunted by the great disparity of force, the Yaudois, 
divided into three bodies, as at Salabertrans, mounted 
to the assault. As they advanced, the Piedmontese 
cried, " Come on, ye devil's Barbets, there are more 
than three thousand of us, and we occupy all the 
posts I" In less than half an hour the whole of the 
posts were carried, the pass was cleared, and the Pied- 
montese fled down the further side of the mountain, 
leaving all their stores behind them. On the following 
day the Yaudois reached Bobi, drove out the new 
settlers, and resumed possession of the lands of the 
commune. Thus, after the lapse of only fourteen days, 
this little band of heroes had marched from the shores 
of the Lake of Geneva, by difficult mountain-passes, 
through bands of hostile troops, which they had defeated 
in two severe fights, and at length reached the very 
centre of the Yaudois valleys, and entered into posses- 
sion of the " Promised Land." 

They resolved to celebrate their return to the 
country of their fathers by an act of solemn worship 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



4i7 



on the Sabbath following. The whole body assembled 
on the hill of Silaoud, commanding an extensive 
prospect of the valley, and with their arms piled, and 
resting under the shade of the chestnut-trees which 
crown the hill, they listened to an eloquent sermon 
from the pastor Montoux, who preached to them stand- 
ing on a platform, consisting of a door resting upon 
two rocks, after which they chanted the 74th Psalm, 
to the clash of arms. They then proceeded to enter 
into a solemn covenant with each other, renewing the 
ancient oath of union of the valleys, and swearing never 
to rest from their enterprise, even if they should b^ 
reduced to only three or four in number, until they had 
" re-established in the valleys the kingdom of the 
Gospel. " Shortly after, they proceeded to divide 
themselves into two bodies, for the purpose of occupy- 
ing simultaneously, as recommended by Javanel, the 
two valleys of the Pelice and St. Martin. 

But the trials and sufferings they had already 
endured were as nothing compared with those they 
were now about to experience. Armies concentrated 
on them from all points. They were pressed by the 
French on the north and west, and by the Piedmontese 
on the south and east. Encouraged by their success 
at Bobi, the Vaudois rashly attacked Yillar, lower down 
the valley, and were repulsed with loss. From thence 
they retired up the valley of Pora, and laid it waste ; 
the enemy, in like manner, destroying the town of Bobi 
and laying waste the neighbourhood. 

The war now became one of reprisals and mutual 
devastation, the two parties seeking to deprive each 
other of shelter and the means of subsistence. The 
Yaudois could only obtain food by capturing the 
enemy's convoys, levying contributions from the plains, 

E E 



4 i 8 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



and making incursions into Dauphiny. The enterprise 
on which they had entered seemed to become more 
hopeless from day to day. This handful of men, half 
famished and clothed in rags, had now arrayed against 
them twenty- two thousand French and Sardinians, 
provided with all the munitions of war. That they 
should have been able to stand against them for two 
whole months, now fighting in one place, and perhaps 
the next day some twenty miles across the mountains 
in another, with almost invariable success, seems little 
short of a miracle. But flesh and blood could not 
endure such toil and privations much longer. ~No 
wonder that the faint-hearted began to despair. 
Turrel, the military commander, seeing no chance of a 
prosperous issue, withdrew across the French frontier, 
followed by the greater number of the Yaudois from 
Dauphiny ;* and there remained only the Italian 
Vaudois, still unconquered in spirit, under the leader- 
ship of their pastor- general Arnaud, who never 
appeared greater than in times of difficulty and 
danger. 

With his diminished forces, and the increasing 
numbers of the enemy, Arnaud found it impossible to 
hold both the valleys, as intended ; besides, winter was 
approaching, and the men must think of shelter and 
provisions during that season, if resistance was to be 
prolonged. It was accordingly determined to concen- 
trate their little force upon the Balsille, and all haste 
was mad ; to reach that stronghold without further 
delay. Their knowledge of the mountain heights and 
passes enabled them to evade their enemies, who were 
watching for them along the valleys, and they passed 

* The greater number of them, including Turrel, were taken 
prisoners and shot, or sent to the galleys, where they died. This last 
was the fate of Turrel. 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



419 



from the heights of Rodoret to the summit of the 
Balsille by night, before it was known that they were 
in the neighbourhood. They immediately set to work 
to throw up entrenchments and erect barricades, so as 
to render the place as secure as possible. Foraging 
parties were sent out for provisions, to lay in for the 
winter, and they returned laden with corn from the 
valley of Pragelas. At the little hamlet of Balsille 
they repaired the mill, and set it a-going, the rivulet 
which flowed down from the mountain supplying 
abundance of water-power. 

It was at the end of October that the little band of 
heroes took possession of the Balsille, and they held it 
firmly all through the winter. For more than six 
months they beat back every force that was sent against 
them. The first attack was made by the Marquis 
d'Ombrailles at the head of a French detachment ; but 
though the enemy reached the village of Balsille, they 
were compelled to retire, partly by the bullets of the 
defenders, and partly by the snow, which was falling 
heavily. The Marquis de Parelles next advanced, and 
summoned the Vaudois to surrender ; but in vain. 
" Our storms are still louder than your cannon/' 
replied Arnaud, " and yet our rocks are not shaken." 
Winter having set in, the besiegers refrained for a time 
from further attacks, but strictly guarded all the passes 
leading to the fortress ; while the garrison, availing 
themselves of their knowledge of the locality, made 
frequent sorties into the adjoining valleys, as well as 
into those of Dauphiny, for the purpose of collecting 
provisions, in which they were usually successful. 

When the fine weather arrived, suitable for a 
mountain campaign, the French general, Catinat, 
assembled a strong force, and marched into the valley, 



420 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



determined to make short work of this little nest of 
bandits on the Balsille. On Sunday morning, the 30th 
of April, 1690, while Arnaud was preaching to his 
flock, the sentinels on the look-out discovered the 
enemy's forces swarming up the valley. Soon other 
bodies were seen approaching by the Col du Pis and 
the Col du Clapier, while a French regiment, supported 
by the Savoyard militia, climbed Mont Guinevert, and 
cut off all retreat in that quarter. In short, the Balsille 
was completely invested. 

A general assault was made on the position on the 
2nd of May, under the direction of General Catinat in 
person. Three French regiments, supported by a 
regiment of dragoons, opened the attack in front ; 
Colonel de Parat, who commanded the leading regi- 
ment, saying to his soldiers as they advanced, " My 
friends, we must sleep to-night in that barrack," 
pointing to the rude Yaudois fort on the summit of the 
Balsille. They advanced with great bravery ; but the 
barricade could not be surmounted, while they were 
assailed by a perfect storm of bullets from the defenders, 
securely posted above. 

Catinat next ordered the troops stationed on the 
Guinevert to advance from that direction, so as to carry 
the position from behind. But the assailants found un- 
expected intrenchments in their way, from behind 
which the Yaudois maintained a heawy fire, that 
eventually drove them back, their retreat being acce- 
lerated by a shower of stones and a blinding fall of 
snow and hail. In the meantime, the attack on the 
bastion in front continued, and the Yaudois, seeing 
the French troops falling back in disorder, made a 
vigorous sortie, and destroyed the whole remaining 
force, excepting fifteen men, who fled, bare-headed and 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. \n 



without arms, and carried to the camp the news of 
their total defeat. 

A Savoyard officer thus briefly described the issue oi 
the disastrous affair in a letter to a friend : "I have 
only time to tell you that the French have failed in 
their attack on the Balsille, and they have been 
obliged to retire after having lost one hundred and 
fifty soldiers, three captains, besides subalterns and 
wounded, including a colonel and a lieutenant-colonel 
who have been made prisoners, with the two sergeants 
who remained behind to help them. The lieutenant- 
colonel was surprised at finding in the fort some nine- 
teen or twenty officers in gold and silver lace, who 
treated him as a prisoner of war and very humanely, 
even allowing him to go in search of the surgeon- 
major of his regiment for the purpose of bringing 
him into the place, and doing all that was necessary." 

Catinat did not choose again to renew the attack in 
person, or to endanger his reputation by a further 
defeat at the hands of men whom he had described as 
a nest of paltry bandits, but entrusted the direction of 
further operations to the Marquis de Feuquieres, who 
had his laurels still to win, while Catinat had his to 
lose. The Balsille was again completely invested by 
the 12th of May, according to the scheme of operations 
prepared by Catinat, and the Marquis received by 
anticipation the title of " Conqueror of the Ba^eta." 
The entire mountain was surrounded, all the passes 
were strongly guarded, guns were planted in positions 
which commanded the Yaudois fort, more particularly 
on the Gruinevert ; and the capture or extermination of 
the Yaudois was now regarded as a matter of certainty. 
The attacking army was divided into five corps. Each 
soldier was accompanied by a pioneer carrying a 



422 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



fascine, in order to form a cover against the Yaudois 
bullets as they advanced. 

Several days elapsed before all the preliminaries for 
the grand attack were completed, and then the Marquis 
ordered a white flag to be hoisted, and a messenger was 
sent forward, inviting a parley with the defenders of 
the Balsille. The envoy was asked what he wanted. 
"Your immediate surrender !" was the reply. "You 
shall each of you receive five hundred louis d'or, and 
good passports for your retirement to a foreign country ; 
but if you resist, you will be infallibly destroyed. 5 ' 
" That is as the Lord shall will," replied the Yaudois 
messenger. 

The defenders refused to capitulate on any terms. 
The Marquis himself then wrote to the Yaudois, offer- 
ing them terms on the above basis, but threatening, in 
case of refusal, that every man of them would be hung. 
Arnaud's reply was heroic. " We are not subjects/ 5 
he said, " of the King of France ; and that monarch 
not being master of this country, we can enter into no 
treaty with his servants. We are in the heritage 
which our fathers have left to us, and we hope, with 
the help of the God of armies, to live and die in it, 
even though there may remain only ten of us to 
defend it." That same night the Yaudois made a 
vigorous sortie, and killed a number of the besiegers : 
this was their final answer to the summons to sur- 
render. 

On the 14th of May the battery on Mont Guinevert 
was opened, and the enemy's cannon began to play 
upon the little fort and bastions, which, being only of 
dry stones, were soon dismantled. The assault was 
then made simultaneously on three sides ; and after a 
stout resistance, the Yaudois retired from their lower 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



intrenchments, and retreated to those on the higher 
ledges of the mountain. They continued their resist- 
ance until night, and then, taking counsel together, 
and feeling that the place was no longer defensible in 
the face of so overpowering a force, commanded, as it 
was, at the same time by the cannon on the adjoining 
heights, they determined to evacuate the Balsille, after 
holding it for a period of nearly seven months. 

A thick mist having risen up from the valley, the 
Vaudois set out, late at night, under the guidance of 
Captain Poulat, a native of the district, who well knew 
the paths in the mountains. They climbed up on to 
the heights above, over icy slopes, passing across gaping 
crevices and along almost perpendicular rocks, admit- 
ting of their passage only in single file, sometimes 
dragging themselves along on their bellies, clinging to 
the rocks or to the tufts of grass, occasionally resting 
and praying, but never despairing. At length they 
succeeded, after a long detour of the mountain crests, 
in gaining the northern slope of Guin evert. Here they 
came upon and surprised the enemy's outpost, which 
fled towards the main body ; and the Yaudois passed 
on, panting and half dead with fatigue. When the 
morning broke, and the French proceeded to penetrate 
the last redoubt on the Balsille, lo, it was empty ! The 
defenders had abandoned it, and they could scarcely 
believe their eyes when they saw the dangerous moun- 
tain escarpment by which they had escaped in the night. 
Looking across the valley, far off, they saw the fugitives, 
thrown into relief by the snow amidst which they 
marched, like a line of ants, apparently making for the 
mass of the central Alps. 

For three days they wandered from place to place, 
gradually moving southwards, their obiect now being 



424 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



to take up their position at the Pra du Tour, the 
ancient fortress of the Barbas in the valley of Angrogna. 
Before, however, they could reach this stronghold, and 
while they were still at Pramol in the valley of Perosa, 
news of the most unexpected kind reached them, which 
opened up the prospect of their deliverance. The news 
was no other than this — Savoy had declared war against 
France ! 

A rupture between the two powers had for some 
time been imminent. Louis XI V. had become more 
and more exacting in his demands on the Duke of 
Savoy, until the latter felt himself in a position of 
oppressive vassalage. Louis had even intimated his 
intention of occupying Verrua and the citadel of Turin ; 
and the Duke, having previously ascertained through 
his cousin, Prince Eugene, the willingness of the 
Emperor of Austria, pressed by William of Orange, 
to assist him in opposing the pretensions of France, he at 
length took up his stand and declared war against Louis. 

The Yaudois were now a power in the state, and 
both parties alike appealed to them for help, promising 
them great favours. But the Yaudois, notwithstanding 
the treachery and cruelty of successive Dukes of Savoy, 
were true to their native prince. They pledged them- 
selves to hold the valleys and defend the mountain 
passes against France. 

In the first engagements which took place between 
the French and the Piedmontese, the latter were over- 
powered, and the Duke became a fugitive. Where did 
he find refuge ? In the valleys of the Yaudois, in a 
secluded spot in the village of Rora, behind the 
Pelice, he found a safe asylum amidst the people 
whose fathers he had hunted, proscribed, and con- 
demned to death. 



THE GLORIOUS RETURN. 



But the tide of war turned, and the French were 
eventually driven out of Piedmont. Many of the 
Yaudois, who had settled in Brandenburg, Holland, and 
Switzerland, returned and settled in the valleys ; and 
though the Dukes of Savoy, with their accustomed 
treachery, more than once allowed persecution to recom- 
mence, their descendants continue to enjoy the land, 
and to worship after the manner of their fathers down 
to the present day. 

The Yaudois long laboured under disabilities, and 
continued to be deprived of many social and civil rights. 
But they patiently bided their time ; and the time at 
length arrived. In 1848 their emancipation was one 
of the great questions of North Italy. It was taken 
up and advocated by the most advanced minds of 
Piedmont. The petition to Charles Albert in their 
favour was in a few days covered with the names of its 
greatest patriots, including those of Balbo, Cavour, and 
D'Azeglio. Their emancipation was at length granted, 
and the Yaudois now enjoy the same rights and liberties 
as the other subjects of Yictor Emanuel. 

Nor is the Yaudois Church any longer confined to 
the valleys, but it has become extended of late years 
all over Italy — to Milan, Florence, Brescia, Yerona, 
Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Palermo, Cataneo, Yenice, 
and even to Pome itself. In most of these places there 
are day-schools and Sunday-schools, besides churches. 
The new church at Yenice, held in the Cavagnis palace, 
seems to have proved especially successful, the Sunday 
services being regularly attended by from three to four 
hundred persons ; while the day-schools in connection 
with the churches at Turin, Leghorn, Naples, and 
Cataneo have proved very successful. 

Thus, in the course of a few years, thirty-three 
F F 



4 26 THE COUNTRY OF THE VAUDOIS. 



Yaudois churches and stations, with about an equal 
number of schools, have been established in various 
parts of Italy. The missionaries report that the 
greatest difficulties they have to encounter arise from 
the incredulity and indifference which are the natural 
heritage of the Romish Church ; but that, nevertheless, 
the work makes satisfactory progress — the good seed 
is being planted, and will yet bring forth its increase 
in God's due time. 

Finally, it cannot but be acknowledged that the 
people of the valleys, in so tenaciously and conscien- 
tiously adhering to their faith, through good and 
through evil, during so many hundred years, have set 
a glorious example to Piedmont, and have possibly been 
in no small degree instrumental in establishing the 
reign of right and of liberty in Italy. 



THE END. 



V1KTVK A>D CO., PRINT*'.KS> 7 «"~*Y ROAD, JLOMXjN. 



INDEX. 



Aiguemortes, Huguenot prison 

at, 193, 273 
Albigenses, 75 

Anabaptists of Munster, 282-3 

Anduze, visit to, 125 

Angrogna, valley of, 385 ; fight- 
ing in, 385-90, 402 

Arnaud, Henry, 215, 406 ; leads 
back the Vaudois, 407 - 19 ; 
defends the Bulsille, 419-23 

Balsille, the, 414 ; defence of, 

419-423 ; given up, 423 
Baridon, Etienne, 346-7 
Baville, on the Protestants of 

Languedoc, 77, 86 ; occupies 

the Cevennes, 87 ; at Pont-de- 

Montvert, 92 
Beauveau, Prince de, 273-4 
Beckwith, General, 382 
Bibles, destruction and scarcity 

of, 215-6 
Bo nnafoux, repulsed by Camisards, 

142 

Book-burning, 215, 225-6 
Bourg d'Oisans, 313-4 
Biiancon, 318-20 
Broglie, Count, 143-4, 148; su- 
perseded, 149 

Brousson, Ciaude, 30 ; advocate 
iorPro.estantchurch at Nismes, 
31 ; meeting in house of, 34 ; 
petition by, 35 ; escape from 
Nismes, 42 ; at Lausanne, 43, 
46; at Berlin, 44 ; in the Ceven- 
nes, 50-2, 54 ; reward offered 
for, 56 ; at Nismes, 57 ; preach- 
ing of, 58-9 ; to Lausanne, 
England and Holland, 61-2 ; at 

G 



Sedan, 64 ; through France, 
66-7; portraiture of, 68 (note) ; 
to Nismes again, 69; taken, 
tried, and executed, 70-3 

Brueys, on fanaticism in Lan- 
guedoc, 91 

Bull of Clement XI. against 
Camisards, 160 

Galas, Jean, 257 ; executed, 258 ; 
case taken up by Voltaire, 259- 
62 ; reversal of judgment on, 
262-3 

Calvinism and race, 100 (note) 
Calvmists, French and Scotcb, 

compared, 100 
Camisards, the, origin <j>f name, 
107; led by Laporte, 109; 
organization of, 112-13; en- 
counter troops, 113, 114, 117; 
war-song of, 115 ; organized by 
Boland, 123-4; successes of, 
134-40, 142 ; spread of insurrec- 
tion of, 138-9 ; measures against 
139, 146-7; successes of, 146- 
150 ; defeat of, at Vagnas, 150 ; 
defeat of, near Pompignan, 152 ; 
success of, at Martinargues, 162- 
4 ; bull against, 160 ; success at 
Salindres, 164-5 ; defeated near 
Nismes, 16*-9 ; reverses of, 
170-1 ; success at Font-morte, 
176-7; defeated at Pont-de- 
Montvert, and end of insurrec- 
tion, 187-9 
Camisards, White, 160-1 
Castanet, Andre, 111, 113. 118, 
123, 189 

Cavalier, John, joins insurgents, 

G 



428 



INDEX. 



108, 111 ; family of, 121; to 
Geneva, 121; to the Cevennes, 
122 ; portrait of, 124 ; in Lower 
Languedoc, 133 ; defeats 
Royalists, 134, 135 ; takes 
Chateau Servas, 136-7 ; repulses 
Bonnafoux, 142 ; at Nismes, 
144-5 ; successes of, 148 ; winter 
campaign, 148-9 ; at Vagnas, 
150-1, 153 ; betrayed at Tower 
ofBelliott, 156-8; at Martin- 
argues, 162-4; at Rosni, 169; 
his cave magazines, 170-1 ; his 
interview with Lalande, 173- 
6 ; attempts peace, 177 ; his 
interviews with Villars, 177- 
183 ; deserted by followers, 183- 
5 ; to England, and subsequent 
career, 186 

Caves, in the Cevennes, 125, 127- 
9 ; at La Tour, 381 

Cevennes, the, persecutions in,39, 
52-3, 85 ; secret meetings in, 
54, 84-8 ; executions in, 59, 
67-8; description of,79-82; arm- 
ing of the people, 85-6; occupied 
by troops, 88 ; prophetic mania 
in, 88 ; encounter at Pont-de- 
Montvert, 92 ; outbreak against 
Du Chayla, 96-7 ; map of, 98 ; 
Protestants of, compared with 
Covenanters, 100-1 ; organiza- 
tion in, 123-5; caves in, 125, 
127-9 ; visit to, 125-9 ; pre- 
sent inhabitants of, 129, 131- 
2 ; devastation of, 154-5 

Champ Domergue, battle at, 114 

Chateau Qneyres, 371 

Chayla, Du, 93, 94, 97 

Chaumont, 271 

Chenevix, 15 (note) 

Choiseul, Due de, 268 

Claris, 237 

Colognac, execution of, 59 
Couriers, 311 

Conderc, Salomon, 119, 123 
Converts, 19-23 ; 38-9 
Court profligacy, 275 (note) 
Court, Antoine, 206-17 ; organizes 
school for preachers, 224 ; 
marriage of, 231 ; retires to 
Switzerland, 232 ; results of his 
work, 233-4 ; in Languedoc, 239 



Covenanters, compared with Pro- 
testants of the Cevennes, 100-2 
Cromwell, 295-6, 380 

D'Aguesseau's opinion of Pro- 
testants of Languedoc, 76-7 

Dauphiny, map of, 286 ; aspect of, 
287-8 

Desert, assemblies in the, 83-8 ; 

218-23 
Dormilhouse, 342, 347-58 
Dortial, 238 
Dumas, death of, 52 
Durand, Pierre, 236 
Dragonnades, 36-7, 42, 54-5 

Easter Massacre of the Vaudois, 
294-6 

England attempts to assist the 

Camisards, 166-7 
Execution of Pastors, 27 

Fabke, Jean, 265 ; sent to galleys, 
266-9 ; obtains leave of absence, 
269 ; exonerated, 270 ; life 
dramatized, and result, 270 

Fermaud, Pastor, 311 

Freeman tie, Rev. Mr., visits of, 
to the Vaudois, 299, 354, 366 

French labouring classes, present 
condition of, 301-4 

Freney, gorge of, 315 

Galley, description of, 197-8; use 

in war, 200-4 
Galley-slaves, treatment of, 194- 

204 ; liberation of Protestants, 

204, 264 (note), 271-3 
Gilly, Dr., visit to the Vaudois, 

297-8, 372, 381 
Glorious Return of the Vaudois, 

397-9 
Guerin, death of, 67 
Guignon betrays Cavalier, 156 

executed, 159 
Guil, valley of the, 370 
Guillestre, 360-70 
Guion, executed, 57 

Homel, tortures and death of, 40. 

Huguonots, the (see Cami- 
sards) ; emigrations of, 43, 76- 
8 ; 83 ; persecution of, after 



INDEX. 



429 



Camisard insurrection, 190- 
204 ; as galley-slaves, 194-204; 
brought together by Court, 210- 
17; reorganization of, 218-228; 
outrages on, 228 ; great assem- 
blies of, 239-40; last of the 
executions, 258; last of the 
galley-slaves, 265-273 ; charac- 
ter of, 274-5 ; later history of, 
276-283 

Irish Brigade, 140-142 
Iron Boot, the, 102 

Joany, Nicholas, insurgent 

leader, 120, 123, 151 
Johannot, 269 

J alien, Brigadier, 147, 150-1 

Lagier, Jean, 356, 357 (note) 

Lajonquiere, defeated at Martin- 
argues, 162-4 

Lalande, his interview with Cava- 
lier, 173-6 

Languedoc (see Cevennes), early 
liberty in, 75 ; Albigenses in, 
75 ; Protestants of, 76-7 ; indus- 
try of, 76 ; emigration from, 
after Kevocation, 78; arming of 
people of, 85-6 ; outbreak of 
fanaticism in, 88-92 ; present 
inhabitants of, 280-3 

Laporte, leader of Camisards, 109- 
10 ; organizes insurgents, 112 ; 
at Collet, 113; at Champ Do- 
mergue, 114 ; killed at Molezon, 
117 

La Salette, 308 ; miracle of, 309-10 
La Tour, 380-4 

Laugier at Guillestre, 367 ; at 

Chateau Queyras, 368 
Lausanne, school for preachers 

at, 224 ; Society of Help at, 

224-5 
Lauteret, Col de, 317 
Lesdiguieres, Due de, 306-7, 359 
Lintarde, Marie, imprisonment 

of, 54 

Locke, John, on Protestants of 

Kismes, 31 (note) 
Louis XIV., 2, 10, 146, 205 
Louis XV., 275 
Louis XVI., 276 



Marion, on influence of Camisard 

prophets, 119 
Marteilhe, autobiography of, 195 

201-4 

Martinargues, battle at, 162-4 
Massillon on Louis XIV., 10 
Mazel, Abraham, 120, 123 
Mialet, visit to, 127-8 
Milsom, Edward, 299, 355, 394-6 
Montpellier, Protestant Church at, 
32-3 ; the Peyrou at, 72 ; exe- 
cution of Brousson at, 73 
Montreval, Marshal, in Langue- 
doc, 149 ; at Pompignan, 152 ; 
adopts extermination, 153 ; 
at Tower of Belliot, 156 
- 8 ; character of, 159 ; re- 
called, 167 ; defeats Cavalier, 
168-9 

Nantes, Eevocation of Edict of. 

and its results, 1-19, 24, 44-5, 

78 ; contemporary opinion upon. 

1-10 ; enactments of Edict of 

Revocation, 12-15 
Neff, Felix, 298, 308 ; life of, 331- 

336 ; his account of winter at 

Dormilhouse, 351 ; his charge, 

373 

Kers, visit to, 131 

Nismes, Protestant Church at, 31; 
petition from, 41 ; Brousson at, 
57, 69 ; Guion at, 57 ; country 
about, 81, 130-2 ; success of 
Camisards near, 143 ; Cavalier 
at, 144-5, 177-83; treaty of, 
179-80 ; Huguenot meetings at, 
265 

Paeons, 337-40 

Paulet, Mdlle., forgeries in name 

of, 32-4 
Pelice, Valley of the, 376 
Pont-de-Montvert, outbreak at, 

92-7 ; description of, 93-4 ; end 

of Camisard insurrection at, 

187-9 

Poul, Captain, in Upper Cevennes, 
108 ; at Champ Domergue, 114- 
16; takes Laporte at Molezon, 
117 ; defeated and killed near 
Xismes, 143-4 

Pra du Tour, 390-4 ; 403 



43° 



INDEX. 



Preachers, education of, 221-4 ; 

hardships of, 225-9, 236-8 
Project, the, 34 

Protestantism in France, present 
chances of, 321 

Quoite, execution of, 53 

Ravanel, insurgent leader, defeats 
Royalists near Nismes, 143 ; 
near Bouquet, 145 ; supplants 
Cavalier, 183-5 ; death of, 189 j 

Bedothiere, Isabeau, 53 

Rey, Fulcran, his preaching and 
death, 25-7 

Rochemalan, Yaudois struggles 
at, 386-90 

Roger, Jacques, 213 

Roland, nephew of Laporte, 111; 
insurgent leader, 113; succeeds 
Laporte, 118; in Lower Ce- 
vennes, 122 ; organizes Cami- 
sards, 123-5 ; takes Sauve, 137; 
atPompignan, 152; atSalindres, 
164-5; at Fonte-morte, 176-7; 
at Pont - de - Montvert, 187; 
death of, 188 

Romanche, Valley of the, 305,312 

Robtan, Alpine missionary, 364 
(note) 

Roussel, Alexandre, 232 

St. Bartholomew, doubt thrown 

upon massacre of, 27 
Saint- Etienne, Rabout, 276-7 
St. Ilvpolite, meeting at, 35 
Saint-Ruth, Marshal, 38 ; in Ire- ! 

land, 38 (note) 
Sain; -Simon on the treatment of 

converts, 23 
San Veran, 372 

Savoy and France, war declared, 

424 

Savoy, Duke of, takes refuge with 
the Vaudois, 424 

Sed;m, prosperity of, before Re- 
vocation, 64-5 ; Brousson at, 65-6 

Seguier, Pierre, insurgent leader, 
96, 103 ; at Frugeres, 104 ; at 
Font-Morte, 106; taken, tried 
and executed, 106-7 

Sirven, 263 ; case of, taken up by 
Voltaire, 264 



Society of Friends in Languedoc, 
281-2 

Souverain executed, 52 
Squeezers, the, 101 (note) 
Svnod of French Protestant 
Church, 283 

Telford, anecdote cf, 82 
Toleration, Edict of, 276 

Val Fressinieres, 327-9, 336-47 
Val Louise, 324 ; massacre at, 326 
Vaudois, the country of, 289 ; 
early Christianity of, 289-90; 
early persecutions of, 292; 
Easter massacre of, 294-5 ; visits 
of Dr. Gilly to, 297-8, 372, 381 ; 
passiveness of, 324-5 ; massacre 
of, at Val Louise, 326 ; persecu- 
tions of, 328-30, 359, 385, 399- 
404, 417-424 ; refuges of, 363, 
371, 379, 381, 385; struggles <<l\ 
at Rochemalan, 386-90", flight 
at the Revocation, 399 ; ap- 
parently exterminated, 404 ; in 
Switzerland, 405 ; prepare to 
r eturn, 406 ; Arnaud appointed 
leader, 406; assisted by William 
of Orange, 407 ; The Glorious 
Return of, 408-417; struggles ■ 1, 
at the Balsille, 419 ; assist Duke 
of Savoy, 424 ; emancipation of, 
425-6 

Vesson, 212, 214 

Vidal, Isaac, preacher, 48 

Villars, Marshal, on prophetic 
mania in Languedoc, 90 ; ap- 
pointed to command in Langue- 
doc, 167 ; at Nismes, 169 : 
clemency of, 172, 186 : treats 
with Cavalier, 177-185 ; sup- 
presses insurrection of Cami- 
sards, 188 

Vincent, Isabel, prophetess, 89, 90 

Vivens, death of, 56 

Voltaire, takes up case of Calas, 
259-63 ; takes up case of Sirven, 
264; case of Chauuiont, 271 

"Valdenses. the, 288 

Wheel, punishment of the, 258 

(note) 



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